Dick Fosbury

The jumper who gave his name to the event's defining technique. Struggling with the straddle as a teenager in Oregon, Fosbury drifted towards going over head first and back down, helped by the arrival of soft foam landing beds. At the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 he won gold with it, clearing an Olympic record 2.24m, and within a decade almost every elite jumper was flopping. Few athletes have changed an event so completely.