Jean Vuarnet (r.) was one of the great pioneers of alpine sports on the way to the modern age. At the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley he changed his sports in two ways: He was the first to ski on metal skis at the Olympic Games and he won. It was the beginning of the end of wooden skis in the discipline. And at the same time Vuarnet is considered the inventor of the "egg position", the tucked position with bent arms and folded fists, which is still used today.
A new letter on the difficulty scale had to be invented especially for Simone Biles: The US gymnast invented four elements that are now named after her. At the 2019 World Championships in the German city Stuttgart she showed the crouched double salto backwards with triple screw on the floor. An element for which the maximum difficulty "I" was no longer sufficient. It was therefore classified with difficulty "J". In addition, another floor element as well as elements on the jump and on the balance beam were named after Biles.
For a long time, the high jump was dominated by the sheer jump and the straddle, i.e. a jump over the bar on one's stomach. Then Dick Fosbury and the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico came. The American turned his back to the bar at the start of the run and crossed it backwards with the back of his head first - and thus won gold. This technique was made possible by the introduction of soft mats behind the crossbar. The jumping technique known today as the "Fosbury Flop" became the technique of choice among the world's elite since the 1980s.
For a long time Jan Böklov was only a backbencher in ski jumping. The Swede did not play a role in the world's elite until he tried out a new technique in the winter of 1986/87 - and revolutionised the sport with it. Böklov did not jump in the usual parallel style, in which the jumpers bent far forward and jumped over the tightly held skis with arms stretched out upwards. Instead, he spread the skis out to form a V and kept his arms spread from his body and let the buoyancy carry him. Especially in the beginning his technique was punished by the judges with bad marks, which often could not be compensated by the greater distances. In the 1988 season Böklov dominated the World Cup with his technique and became overall winner. At the beginning of the 1990s, his V-style became widely accepted - and Böklov fell back to mediocrity.
It is not known who exactly invented the "Belgian tourniquet". The only known thing is that tactical slipstream driving based on the rotation principle originated in Belgium with its frequently strong and changing winds. Even today, the "Belgian tourniquet", in which the leader of a formation rotates every two to five seconds, is still an applied practice. In this way, groups of runaways can save energy and divide up the leadership work facing the wind by taking turns in the slipstream. The problem in general: In the chasing pack, the Belgian tourniquetis often even more efficient because of the often better coordinated teamwork.
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