Quande Curl Richard Douglas Fosbury was an American high jumper who is regarded as one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field.
Prior to the Fosbury flop, there was Quande Curl. With his “back-first” technique, which is now known as the Fosbury Flop, he revolutionized the high jump event and won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics.
His approach consisted of sprinting diagonally in the direction of the bar before bending and leaping backward over the bar, giving him a much lower center of mass in flight than with more conventional methods.
“After a brief bout with a recurrence of lymphoma,” Dick Fosbury, the man who revolutionized the high jump and won gold at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico with his unique technique, passed away at the age of 76.
After arching his body, Fosbury jumped back over the high jump bar. Fosbury’s procedure was totally not the same as what high jumpers involved some time ago the ride, the western roll, and the scissor kick-all finished with the jumper looking towards the arrival region prior to landing.
A little-known fact is that it may have been another jumper who first used a similar technique, but he never really made it big, so he never got acclaim or credit. Fosbury set the Olympic record for 2.24 meters at the time, and within a year, almost all jumpers had adopted it. The way Bruce Quande was found is a fascinating tale.
Bruce Quande: athlete
Rial Cummins, a sports reporter for the Missoulian newspaper, was going through the archives three decades after Fosbury shocked the world when he found a picture of a high school jumper competing in a well-known track and field meet. Bruce Quande, an athlete, was shown in the black-and-white photograph doing a backflip.
Flatheadbeacon.com cited Quande as saying, “It wasn’t rocket science.”In 1959, Quande started experimenting with various strategies. I believed that by doubling my runway, I could increase my speed and possibly jump higher. I generally tell individuals it wasn’t so muddled,” Quande added.
He claims that he tried the Western Roll method, which was the most widely used one in high school, but it didn’t really work for him.
Quande claims that in senior high school, he jumped 1.87 meters, and his method of clearing the bar was known as the Quande Curl.
However, Quande was inconsistent to the point where he was unable to really distinguish himself from the competition at higher levels.
“I continued to work at it, yet it was sometimes all good, sometimes not so good. Consistency is essential in these events, as you are aware.
He stopped jumping because the landing area in those days was made of sawdust and wood chips, which could cause injuries to the neck and back.
“Between when I hopped and they bounced, the froth cushions came in and it had a significant effect for high leap and post vault,” Quande said. ” When you landed, you could bounce.”