Jumpers that we idolized in 1960s are shown in their video glory
Dick Fosbury. Ed Caruthers. Otis Burrell. Phil May. Art Walker. And a bunch of other vertical and horizontal jumpers are featured in this compilation of 1960s legends. Track & Field News posted the link, and it’s worth your perusal — just so you can see those insane scrap-foam pits and three-sided metal high jump bars that we ALL landed on and made into V-shaped worthless gear. This era followed the sawdust era, and it made jumping what it is today. Otis is still jumping, BTW. Hope he enjoys these historic clips.
Dick Fosbury’s revolutionary flop is shown several times in this video.
14 Responses
Splendid!
Fantastic stuff. Those guys made it look easy – very smooth :-). Thanks Ken!
Great!
Outside of Masters, the flop is really the only jump style in use today and of course works well. I teach the flop to my jumpers but looking at Brumel’s jumping. Suppose that he was not in the motorcycle accident and instead had been able to compete at the top of his game in Mexico and won. Would anyone have paid attention to Fosbury’s style? Face it, we tend to copy the winner, not second place. Any thoughts?
I had the opportunity to participate in a high jump clinic put on by DicK Fosbury at the Nike World Masters Games in Eugene, Oregon. It is a day I will always remember. He finished 3rd at the competition but had only come out of retirement for that one event. Really special day as some of the other Mexico City Olympians like Lee Evans, former world record holder for the 400m, also competed there and I haven’t seen him since either. There were other Olympians there but those are the two I remember. I think they also gained an appreciation for the effort that it takes to continue to compete as we advance in age.
By the way, I think Bob Beaman (not sure I spelled that right) was also there competing at the Nike Games (of 29’2 1/2″ fame) and I don’t think he won the long jump. It is a real shame that those guys didn’t stay with it. It would be an honor to continue competing beside such greats.
Rick, I think that it must be hard for the elite guys to stay motivated. Several years I saw Ralph Boston coaching some kids and he demonstrated the long jump, going about 17 – 18′. He was about 60 at the time. When I asked if he thought about competing, he said he just did not have the desire anymore. Jumping 17′ and winning the local senior games would be great for me but how exciting would it be for someone who jumped 27′ 6″ and won the Olympics?
We Southern Californians are lucky to have Rey Brown and Otis Burrell jump in our meets. And Ed Caruthers is no stranger showing up here and there. We can never get enough of their jumps and their stories.
Rick (5.and6.): You are correct that Fosbury finished third in the high jump in his M50 age group at the 1998 ($200-Nike) World Masters Games in Eugene. And since they combined the M45s (my age group) and M50s, it was a track and field highlight of mine to be able to high jump in the same group with him. Beamon does not show up in the results, posted at:
http://jick.net/track/98nike.html
Lee Evans ran a 2:14.69 in the 800m prelims, but did not finish in the finals. Evans coached briefly at the University of Washington and the last time I spoke with him was in 2006 or so down in Mobile, AL at the University of South Alabama where he was the T&F and CC coach at that time.
David Ortman thanks for posting the results from the 1998 World Masters Games in Eugene. I looked through them and was astonished at how much the masters times and distances have improved in the last 18 years.
I compared my recent 75-79 age marks against those of 1998. With my typical performance, I could have won at least eight of those events and medaled in at least eight more. How does that compare with the 2015 Lyon WMA event? With the same performance levels at that meet, I would not have won a single medal.
With that rate of improvement throughout the years, it is little wonder there are so many national and world records set at every major meet.
Roger, I don’t have time to do the research right now (have a Tuesday deadline on something else), but as I recall this was a rather small meet in terms of track and field, with specialists who entered just one event, such as the high jump or pole vault, required to come up with $200 for the privilege, as indicated by David Ortman above.
For comparisons with 2015 Lyon it would be much better to use the results from the 1995 worlds.
Roger, Peter is correct. For a fair comparison with Lyon 2015, you should look at the biennial WAVA championship meets (Buffalo 1995, Durban 1997, Gateshead 1999). The “World Masters Games” is a (roughly) quadrennial multi-sport event that, at least in 1998, did not attract as many of the world’s top T&F athletes.
Peter and Ed, Thanks for pointing that out. There is a very large difference in the performance levels between the WMG and WMA meets of that era. That was a very weak field at Eugene. Per your suggestions, I went to the 1995 WMA meet at Buffalo. Again, using my last year performances, it looks like I might have achieved one first, two seconds and two thirds against the Buffalo quality field. That was still much better than the zero medals I would have won at Lyon last year.
That still suggests quite an increase in performances for the old guys over the last twenty years.
Roger #13. I would think the main difference between WAVA(prior to WMA)-Buffalo in 1995 and WMA-Lyon in 2015 results is the fact that Europe has a robust and very competitive masters/seniors/veterans track and field community. A world masters meet in Lyon is likely going to attract a faster field being located in the “backyard” of most European countries compared to any meet anywhere in the U.S. which usually requires thousands of miles “within” the U.S. to get to.
Thanks to Ken Stone, the WAVA/WMA results can be viewed at:
http://www.mastershistory.org/history/resultsworld.html
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