Beijing Olympic Games

Keep an eye on Holm advises Fosbury

by Jeremy Inson

ROME (AFP) - It was 40 years ago this summer that Dick Fosbury revolutionised the high jump to win gold at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City with his 'flop' style pushing him to an Olympic record of 2.24 metres.

With the Beijing Olympics now less than a month away, the 60-year-old's gold, or least a podium place, could be emulated by one of the three US jumpers in the top 10—Dusty Jones, Andra Manson and Scott Sellers—but Fosbury feels that the reigning champion Stefan Holm is still the man to look out for, whilst in the women's competition he believes the field is wide open.

"I think it will be interesting as we have three high Americans in the top 10 for height this year, but the guy I have my eye on is Stefan Holm. He is still competitive and we know that he can win. He's the guy I'm really watching," Fosbury said.

"In the ladies competition I know that they are starting to push the Olympic record and I know it will be very interesting to watch."

Mexico City's Olympics were notable for the heightened political situation during their build up.

In April civil rights leader Martin Luther King had been assassinated, in May Parisian student protestors occupied the Sorbonne, whilst in June democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy was shot dead in Los Angeles.

Worse was to follow in late August when Warsaw Pact troops invaded Prague to put down the reformist government led by Alexander Dubcek, whilst only weeks before the flame was lit in Mexico City over 100 students were slaughtered in the city during the Tlatelolco massacre.

USA athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos made the Mexico Olympics famous by their civil rights protest on the podium following their gold and bronze in the 200m and Fosbury feels that any athlete who wishes to make a protest in Beijing should follow Smith and Carlos and concentrate on their events before making their stand.

"As an old Olympian the advice I would give is after your competition you have a lifetime to make a protest. Don't pass up the opportunity in your competition, then you can make your protest."

The 1968 Games were also remarkable for being the first to feature an athlete failing a drugs test.

Swedish pentathlete Han-Gunnar Lilijenwall was caught for alcohol, despite claiming he only "had a couple of beers" to steady his nerves before the pistol shoot and it resulted in the Swedish team having to hand back their bronze medals.

With the spectre of drug cheating hanging like a cloud over athletics, notably 2004 100m champion Justin Gatlin, Fosbury sees no excuse in trying to circumnavigate the rules.

"It does not help when athletes are prepared to cheat. It is unfair to themselves and other competitors. They have no honour in winning and no honour in competing. Sport is only at its best if athletes follow the rules and are fair to other competitors.

"As for the style of jumping that he introduced, Fosbury says he was just trying to improve his performance and had no thought of changing forever the way people made it over the bar, whilst still playing down his part in altering athletics history.

"I wasn't trying to change the high-jump, but to remain competitive, play the game and be the best high jumper that I could be. Fortunately I found out how to change for the best. I changed one of the oldest techniques, the scissors, and I made it more efficient.

"It took a while. It took 20 years for it to become universal.

"I was surprised that other jumpers seemed to catch on and in my observation it wasn't the elite jumpers, rather it was the jumpers at the second level who really had nothing to risk by changing over and trying other techniques and they found that they had success that came fairly rapidly.

"So it was really the young people that created the revolution of the style."