Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

[Guest]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Yikes. I always assumed that the advantage of the flop over the straddle was roughly 3-4 inches, but in your case it was vastly more. Strangely, I just couldn't do the flop--I was perfectly comfortable with the straddle (with a rather lazy lead leg, I will admit), but the flop just never felt "natural" to me at all. Part of the problem--which jumpers today can't imagine--was that we landed on mounds of soil or sand--when the first foam bags came in (I went to a samll hs in Connecticut) it was like heaven. In a few cases, I recall hj standards being set up in front of the long jump pit! Try flopping into that, and you're in a wheelchair the rest of your life.

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

another true story, perhaps told before but how often do us old HJ'ers get to reminisce ?!

Was a high school senior self-taught 5'10 3/4" Western Roller until I went to the Nationals at Randalls Island in 1961. I was fascinated by Bob Avant's quasi Dive Straddle ( he beat John Thomas at 7'0" on fewer misses ! ) so I immediately went home and started working on it. Never Western Rolled again, and inched on up a bit in the next 4 years in college. Then "retired" a few years before the Flop came in. So thank you Bob Avant !!

[Guest]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Steve, we need to start some sort of support group or reminiscence society. Ah, the good old days!!!

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

kuha1, make me feel bad.... what's your PR ?

[Guest]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

And they say Ultramarthon Runners are nut cases.

Glad to see we aren't alone!

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

you too tafnut.

[Guest]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

You've got NO reason to feel bad; my PR is a mammoth 5'10" (I never hjed after HS). If I'd been competing in the 1870s, I would have been very good!

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

ah HA then, I beat you in HS by a whopping 3/4" !! Who knows what greatness you might have achieved if you had continued........

[Per Andersen]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Yes hjsteve you beat me too. I jumped 1/2 inch over my own head ( I am 6'3 ) and was within a foot of the w-rec until a Mr Thomas from B.U. ruined that for me in the spring of '60.
These days the knee will not tolerate any rolling or straddling although a back lay-out scissor is still somewhat possible if the bar goes no higher than 4'2. By the way a pretty literary team the U.S had in '60 with Dumas & Faust.

[stevehj197]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Per, I do not "get" the comment about "pretty literary team of Dumas and Faust." Faust had a reputation (perhaps later ) of being a bit of antelligent flake, but whatr's this about Dumas ?

I remember as a youngster laughing at Dumas' supposed comment (quoted in T&FN), talking of the Melbourne competition vs. Chilla Porter, when they both had jumped about 6"10" and were both trying for about 6'11", when he said, if they both had missed, " I thought they would flip a coin and I would surely lose."
And I believe T&FN prefaced that quote with the comment:


" Dumas, whose physical feats far outweigh his mental, said..:"

[Guest]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Tell me you're kidding Steve. Dumas . . . Faust . . . literary . . .

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

hey, Per said it, not me ! That's why I posted my response. Perhaps he was being facetious.

[Per Andersen]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

No I wasn't thinking Joe & Charlie. It was their last names that had some literary connotation like with that Hemingway guy whose first name is not Ernest but jumped for the U.S. in Paris this last summer. I should not have mixed in this arcane lit stuff when we were talking High Jump.
So does anybody out there have a picture of Bob Barksdale of Morgan State who went over the bar on his back, in the late 50s. He was maybe an early precursor to Fosbury. I once had a picture of him but could not appreciate it and then my mom threw out all my non Track&Field News mags.

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

Per, I am going by memory here at it was a loooooong time ago, but Sports Illustrated, back in its early years, had some color photos of different HJ styles, and one of them was of Barksdale. It must have been sometime between 1955 ( SI started that summer i think ) and probably 1958 at the latest.... I bet it was '55 or '56.

So there is a project for someone. This is a pretty clear memory in my head of all this.... I remember looking at the picture and thinking his modified scissors style was weird but cool.

As for the other.... " Dumas and Faust..." I get, it, I get it !

[6 5.5hjsteve]

Re: Hestrie Cloete's windmill arm movements.

minor, minor correction..... Sports Illustrated started in 1954, not 1955.

And 2 out of their first 3 years, their Sportsman of the Year was a Trackster !! 1955 was Brooklyn Dodgers' Johnny Podres; if you cannot figure out 1954, well, you are beyond help. And 1956 is pretty easy too.