Dick Fosbury and the Flop, 1968

Dick Fosbury going over the bar backward, head first, at the US Olympic trials in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the summer of 1968, a few months before Mexico City. The technique looked like a mistake to most of the crowd. In the Olympic final that October he cleared 2.24 meters for gold and an Olympic record, and within a few years almost every elite high jumper was copying him. Few Olympic moments have changed how an entire event is performed.