Word: crossbarred
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Browning's knack was discovered by accident. He was practicing flips and somersaults under the admiring eye of Illinois Gymnastics Coach Charley Pond recently when both coach and pupil were struck with the same idea: Browning was clearing prodigious heights. They set up a standard high-jump crossbar, and Browning cleared 6 ft. 6 in., a good height for any high jumper. A bit later, he tumbled himself over the 7-ft. mark. His technique: a running, springing aerial twist into a backward handspring, which supplies momentum for a final backward double somersault up & over the bar. Some sportswriters...
...Richards, 25, is the world's best pole-vaulter. Under his own power, at least, he has soared closer to heaven (15 ft. 4¾ in.) than any other divine in history. He now hopes to clear a crossbar set at 16 ft., which is 4¼ in. higher than the world record mark made in 1942 by fabulous Cornelius Warmerdam, the only 15-ft. vaulter on the books until Richards made it a year ago. Bob is also as strictly amateur as an athlete can be. With rock-ribbed integrity, he turns down all offers of "help" from...
...usual, Bob thanked the Lord when he got the Sullivan Trophy. But lest someone regard him as stuffily sanctimonious, he added: "I don't imply that God is any metaphysical demon hiding behind the nearest cloud, waiting to clutch at me and lift me over the crossbar ... I mean psychological influence, which He exerts over all those who can search their souls and find there the strength to perform wonderful things...
...Robert Richards took a clutch on his vaulting pole, charged down the stretch, and launched himself at a crossbar 15 ft. 1 in. high. Over he went and down, asprawl, into the pit on the other side...
Richards looked up at the crossbar. There it sat: the most beautiful stationary object he had ever seen in his life. After two years of missing by finger-flicks (TIME, Jan. 29), Parson Richards had become the second* man in history to vault 15 feet or more. He got up and did an unrestrained war dance...