He won a gold medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics, revolutionizing the high jump event with a "back-first" technique now known as the Fosbury flop.

Though he never returned to the Olympics, Fosbury continued to be involved in athletics after retirement and served on the executive board of the World Olympians Association.

Fosbury ran for Blaine County Commissioner against incumbent Larry Schoen in 2018, won the seat, and took office in 2019.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Fosbury started experimenting with a new high-jumping technique at age 16, while attending Medford High School.

Fosbury found it difficult to coordinate all the motions involved in the straddle method, so he began to experiment with other ways of doing the high jump.

Nonetheless, it was nowhere near as coordinated as a well-performed straddle method jump, and one historian has referred to Fosbury's early attempts as an "airborne seizure".

[4] Luckily for Fosbury, replacement of landing surfaces with foam rubber was becoming common across the United States in the early 1960s.

[9] The school's coach, Berny Wagner, believed that Fosbury would eventually achieve greater results using the western roll and convinced him to continue practicing the old technique through his first year, although he was allowed to use the "flop" in freshman meets.

[5] The debate over technique ended during Fosbury's second year, however, when he cleared 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) in his first meet of the season, shattering the school record.

[10] Fosbury won the 1968 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) title using his new technique—the first of two consecutive titles—as well as the United States Olympic Trials.

In the 1968 outdoor season, Fosbury won the Pac-8 Conference title and went on to win the NCAA championship at Berkeley, California, in mid-June with a jump of 7 feet 2.5 inches (2.197 m).

However, Olympic veteran Ed Caruthers, high schooler Reynaldo Brown, and Fosbury all cleared on their first attempts.

When the fourth man, John Hartfield, another high schooler who had been leading the competition, missed all three of his attempts, the Olympic team of three jumpers was set.

His teammate, Ed Caruthers, cleared on his second effort, while Valentin Gavrilov of the Soviet Union missed on all three attempts and earned the bronze medal (third place).

[16] In 1988, Fosbury competed in the Masters Outdoor Nike World Games and taught at the jump clinic held during the meet.

[19] In 2015, Swedish DJ and Producer Avicii released the music video for "Broken Arrows" (with lyrics by Zac Brown) that is loosely based on Fosbury's high-jumping story and personal life.

[20] In 2020, SuperWest Sports included Fosbury in its list of The Greatest Pac-12 Male Track and Field Athletes of All Time, naming him the best-ever at Oregon State University.

[21] After the national anthem during his Olympic medal ceremony, Fosbury stated that he raised his fist in solidarity with the earlier civil rights protest at the games.

[32] Fosbury died on March 12, 2023, aged 76, after a short bout with a recurrence of lymphoma; he was survived by his wife Robin.