Short answers, pulled from the story.
The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. A bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat for landing. Alongside the pole vault, it is one of two vertical clearance events on the Olympic athletics program.
The Fosbury Flop is the universally preferred high jump technique in which athletes run toward the bar and leap head first with their back to the bar. Dick Fosbury developed it at Oregon State University and won gold at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, after which its use spread quickly and floppers came to dominate international competition.
Javier Sotomayor of Cuba holds the men's high jump world record, set in 1993, the longest-standing record in the history of the men's event. Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine holds the women's world record, set in 2024.
The high jump is governed by World Athletics Technical Rules TR26 and TR27, and jumpers must take off from one foot. A jump fails if the jumper dislodges the bar or touches the ground or any object behind the bar before clearance, and three consecutive missed jumps eliminate a competitor. Victory goes to the jumper who clears the greatest height during the final.
If jumpers tie, the first tie-breaker is the fewest misses at the height where the tie occurred, then the fewest misses throughout the competition. If first place is still tied, a jump-off follows, with one attempt per height starting above the highest cleared height. A 2009 rule-change made the jump-off optional, which led to shared gold in the 2020 Olympic men's event held in 2021.
The high jump was among the first events deemed acceptable for women, having been held at the 1928 Olympic Games. On the women's side, 16-year-old Ulrike Meyfarth of West Germany won gold at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Before the Fosbury Flop, jumpers used a straight-on approach, the scissors technique, Michael Sweeney's Eastern cut-off, George Horine's Western roll, and the straddle. The straddle, pioneered by American and Soviet jumpers, was the dominant high-clearance method until floppers took over, with the last straddle world records held by Vladimir Yashchenko and Rosemarie Ackermann into 1978.