There is no video (that I know of) from the 1896 Olympics competitions. This makes perfect sense given that the cinématographe of the Lumière brothers had made its public debut just three months before the Games. (There is supposedly a video History of the Olympic Games with the first part covering the 1896 Olympics. However, apart from some sequences showing the arrival of dignitaries at the stadium, everything else is either photos with a Ken Burns effect added, or sequences from a movie, or video from posterior Games).
However from 1900 onwards there is a video testimony of the Games and, although not everything has been filmed, some gems do exist. I stumbled upon one of them when watching a video from the 1906, intercalatory, Olympics. (I know that the official position of the IOC is to ignore completely the 1906 Games, which, by the way, were the Games that saved the Olympics. De Coubertin did whatever was possible in order to sabotage these Games and Brundage ensured that the 1906 Olympics would be forgotten. I have written a short article on this and I will probably come back to the question in the future).
I have already presented the intriguing photo in my article on what I dubbed "the javelin option".
I give it again here, just to spare my readers the fuss of tracking it down.
I sent the photo to the great specialist of the Olympics, B. Mallon, asking him whether he had an idea who the jumper was. (I had already corresponded with B. Mallon in the past and he had furnished me the complete archives of the decathlon scoring tables, since their inception. One day I will do something with these tables, but I do not know when). I added in my mail that I thought that the athlete was jumping in the flop style. He replied that to his eyes the style "was a variant of the scissors called the Eastern Cut-Off which was not really the flop". So, I sent him the video, pointing out that for me the style was what Fosbury called "back layout". And B. Mallon did acquiesce that in the video the jumping style did indeed look like a flop.
Still the mystery as to the identity of the jumper persisted. But I did not forget the matter completely and so, one day, I did luck out. In a page, in hungarian, writing about hungarian athletes, distinguished for their heroic deeds in the World War I, I found a mention of Lajos Gönczy. (He perished on the italian front in 1915).
Gönczy was a high jumper. He had participated in the Paris, 1900, Olympics where he won a bronze medal. He was less lucky in St. Louis where he could only manage a 4th place. (He placed also 5th in the standing high jump). There is a very funny story related to this below-par performance. In fact there are two versions of it. In the aforementioned article we read
It was recorded that he had brought some bottles of Tokaj wine as a reinforcement to the competition. It was consumed during training sessions. During the competition, he did not allow him to use the "doping agent".
The second version is less reverential.
The passion for alcohol of the Hungarian champion in the high jump Lajos Gönczy deprived him of a better appearance and an Olympic medal in the track and field events of the Saint Louis Games. Although Gönczy had travelled over many kilometres in order to participate in the organisation, he did not forget to hide in his luggage quite a few bottles of wine, so that he would not have to deny himself from his favourite drink during his stay in the USA. Nevertheless, those responsible of the Hungarian delegation, being aware of their athlete's passion, but also of his great talent as a high jumper, which would probably offer him a medal, made certain to discover the "illegal" load. However, their mistake was that instead of getting rid of it totally, they just hid it, possibly to reward their athlete after the end of the Games and celebrate with him a potential victory. But they reckoned without the host, or, rather, without Gönczy...
During the event the Hungarian high jumper literally did not know what he was doing. Finally he ranked fourth with a performance of 1.75m and when his fellow countrymen came near him, they realised what had happened, since Gönczy smelled alcohol. On the eve of the game he had discovered the hiding place and consumed all the bottles of wine that had remained.
In the 1906 Olympics Gönczy obtained a silver medal in high jump (and a 5th place in the standing high jump). What was really great was the photo accompanying the article on Gönczy,
where he is jumping turning his back to the bar. In his report on the 1906 Olympic Games, J. Sullivan writes:
The Greek and the Hungarian who figured in the high jump, jumped purely with strength with no science and did remarkably well. One of the contestants who cleared 1.75 took off at least 10 feet or more from the bar, and who in making his qualifying jump slipped at least eighteen inches, having no spikes in his shoes. Such jumping is simply remarkable under such conditions. It only goes to show what these foreigners will do when they take up scientific jumping.
The contestant who cleared 1.75 m was none other than Gönczy.
The article on Hungarian heroes gives a short description, of Gönczy's technique, calling it the "hungarian" style. It is interesting to give verbatim the translation which I find most intelligible:
He jumped like this: he ran in front of him perpendicularly, kicked in from afar, then crossed over the ledge with his foot forward and his back heavily arched.
Combining this with every other available online translation I can summarise Gönczy's style as follows:
His run-up was perpendicular to the pit. Taking one strong last step, he passed the bar on his back.
If this is not Fosbury flop I don't know what it is.
This explains also why Gönczy did not have great success in standing high jump. The Fosbury style is based on speed. So, while Gönczy's style was OK in the "normal" high jump, it did disservice him in the standing one.
In case you were wondering, the IOC does not count the 1906 silver medal of Gönczy as an olympic one.
However from 1900 onwards there is a video testimony of the Games and, although not everything has been filmed, some gems do exist. I stumbled upon one of them when watching a video from the 1906, intercalatory, Olympics. (I know that the official position of the IOC is to ignore completely the 1906 Games, which, by the way, were the Games that saved the Olympics. De Coubertin did whatever was possible in order to sabotage these Games and Brundage ensured that the 1906 Olympics would be forgotten. I have written a short article on this and I will probably come back to the question in the future).
I have already presented the intriguing photo in my article on what I dubbed "the javelin option".
I give it again here, just to spare my readers the fuss of tracking it down.
I sent the photo to the great specialist of the Olympics, B. Mallon, asking him whether he had an idea who the jumper was. (I had already corresponded with B. Mallon in the past and he had furnished me the complete archives of the decathlon scoring tables, since their inception. One day I will do something with these tables, but I do not know when). I added in my mail that I thought that the athlete was jumping in the flop style. He replied that to his eyes the style "was a variant of the scissors called the Eastern Cut-Off which was not really the flop". So, I sent him the video, pointing out that for me the style was what Fosbury called "back layout". And B. Mallon did acquiesce that in the video the jumping style did indeed look like a flop.
Still the mystery as to the identity of the jumper persisted. But I did not forget the matter completely and so, one day, I did luck out. In a page, in hungarian, writing about hungarian athletes, distinguished for their heroic deeds in the World War I, I found a mention of Lajos Gönczy. (He perished on the italian front in 1915).
Gönczy was a high jumper. He had participated in the Paris, 1900, Olympics where he won a bronze medal. He was less lucky in St. Louis where he could only manage a 4th place. (He placed also 5th in the standing high jump). There is a very funny story related to this below-par performance. In fact there are two versions of it. In the aforementioned article we read
It was recorded that he had brought some bottles of Tokaj wine as a reinforcement to the competition. It was consumed during training sessions. During the competition, he did not allow him to use the "doping agent".
The second version is less reverential.
The passion for alcohol of the Hungarian champion in the high jump Lajos Gönczy deprived him of a better appearance and an Olympic medal in the track and field events of the Saint Louis Games. Although Gönczy had travelled over many kilometres in order to participate in the organisation, he did not forget to hide in his luggage quite a few bottles of wine, so that he would not have to deny himself from his favourite drink during his stay in the USA. Nevertheless, those responsible of the Hungarian delegation, being aware of their athlete's passion, but also of his great talent as a high jumper, which would probably offer him a medal, made certain to discover the "illegal" load. However, their mistake was that instead of getting rid of it totally, they just hid it, possibly to reward their athlete after the end of the Games and celebrate with him a potential victory. But they reckoned without the host, or, rather, without Gönczy...
During the event the Hungarian high jumper literally did not know what he was doing. Finally he ranked fourth with a performance of 1.75m and when his fellow countrymen came near him, they realised what had happened, since Gönczy smelled alcohol. On the eve of the game he had discovered the hiding place and consumed all the bottles of wine that had remained.
In the 1906 Olympics Gönczy obtained a silver medal in high jump (and a 5th place in the standing high jump). What was really great was the photo accompanying the article on Gönczy,
where he is jumping turning his back to the bar. In his report on the 1906 Olympic Games, J. Sullivan writes:
The Greek and the Hungarian who figured in the high jump, jumped purely with strength with no science and did remarkably well. One of the contestants who cleared 1.75 took off at least 10 feet or more from the bar, and who in making his qualifying jump slipped at least eighteen inches, having no spikes in his shoes. Such jumping is simply remarkable under such conditions. It only goes to show what these foreigners will do when they take up scientific jumping.
The contestant who cleared 1.75 m was none other than Gönczy.
The article on Hungarian heroes gives a short description, of Gönczy's technique, calling it the "hungarian" style. It is interesting to give verbatim the translation which I find most intelligible:
He jumped like this: he ran in front of him perpendicularly, kicked in from afar, then crossed over the ledge with his foot forward and his back heavily arched.
Combining this with every other available online translation I can summarise Gönczy's style as follows:
His run-up was perpendicular to the pit. Taking one strong last step, he passed the bar on his back.
If this is not Fosbury flop I don't know what it is.
This explains also why Gönczy did not have great success in standing high jump. The Fosbury style is based on speed. So, while Gönczy's style was OK in the "normal" high jump, it did disservice him in the standing one.
In case you were wondering, the IOC does not count the 1906 silver medal of Gönczy as an olympic one.
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