Rise of the Flop Stars ; Answers to Correspondents [Scot Region]

Summary

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QUESTION What is the highest high jump ever achieved using the scissor jump? HIGH-jump technique evolved up to the Sixties when Dick Fosbury revolutionised the event with his Fosbury flop. Earlier techniques were incarnations of the scissor jump and variations of it, such as the western roll and straddle.

To perform a scissor jump, the athlete approached the bar from an angle and threw first the inside leg, then the outside leg, over the bar in a scissoring motion, landing on the feet. American Michael F. Sweeney was the greatest proponent of the scissor jump, taking the world record in 1895 with a jump of 1.97m.

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Rise of the Flop Stars ; Answers to Correspondents [Scot Region]

The western roll was a variation on the scissor jump in which an athlete again approached from an angle, but this time the inner leg is used for the take off while the outer leg was thrust up to lead the body sideways over the bar.

It was made popular by George Horine in 1912, the first high jumper to clear 2m. The technique predominated until th...

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