The Fosbury Flop, the Cruyff Turn and other eponymous techniques

Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who completely revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal, died Sunday age 76

Dick Fosbury, of the United States, clears the bar in the high jump competition at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Fosbury, the lanky leaper who completely revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury Flop,” has died after a recurrence with lymphoma. He was 76. AP PhotoShow less

Dick Fosbury, the lanky leaper who completely revamped the technical discipline of high jump and won an Olympic gold medal with his “Fosbury Flop,” died Sunday age 76.

Here are some others forever immortalised in their sport.

The Fosbury Flop

Dick Fosbury lending his name to a flop. Hardly seems a fair moniker for the complicated coordination of reverse leaping which allowed athletes to go higher than ever before.

It is a pity for the world that the American, who emerged from nowhere to win high jump gold at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, beat the Canadian Debbie Brill to naming rights.

The had both – separately, and without knowledge of the other – been working a new technique. Had Brill got there first, Javier Sotomayor et al would now be masters of The Brill Bend instead.

The Cruyff Turn

Most people who play football, from novice standard upward, can do this manouevre. Its greatness lies in its simplicity.

“Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is,” its progenitor – the late Johan Cruyff – once said, in one of his myriad profound musings on the game.

Jan Olsson, the Swedish defender at the 1974 World Cup, is still able to dine out on the fact he was the first to be flummoxed by this Cruyff trick on international television.

But Dutch supporters had been wowed by it so often before then, it had already become as regulation as it is today.

The Panenka

Cruyff was variously described as a genius, the Father of Modern Football, and Pythagoras in Football Boots. Antonin Panenka? Not so much.

Still, while all-time great Cruyff gave his name to a workaday trick, Panenka’s legacy is one of the most audacious tactics in the sport: the softly chipped penalty.

At first, the Bohemians Prague playmaker hatched the skill while competing with his club goalkeeper at training. The stakes at that point were chocolate.

It ended up winning Czechoslovakia the 1976 European Championship, via a penalty shoot-out with West Germany.

The Dilscoop

This natty neologism morphs a description of scooping the ball directly over the wicketkeeper in cricket with the surname of its first proponent: Tillakaratne Dilshan.

Nasser Hussain, the England captain turned commentator, originally called it The Dilshan. That was one of many initial attempts to attribute a name to the new shot for the Twenty20 generation.

None of them have ever sat that well with Dilshan’s teammates, though.

“In our dressing room it will always be The Starfish,” Mahela Jayawardene said. “You have to have no brains to be playing a shot like that.”

And one that isn’t, but sounds like it should be ...

The Garryowen

Not a bloke called Garry Owen, but a place in Ireland. The high, punted, up-and-under kick in rugby was named after the team that first used it, to great success in the 1920s.