This is a case study from Paul Arden's book 'Whatever you think think the opposite.' Before 1968 the customary way for a high jumper to cross the bar was with his body parallel to it, in a technique known as the Western Roll. At the Mexico olympics a little-known athlete approached the bar, which was set at a world record height of 7ft 4 and a half inches. He took off, but instead of turning his body towards the bar, he turned his back on it, bringing his legs up and flipped over the bar backwards. This jumper, Dick Fosbury, is now responsible for the Fosbury Flop which is still used to this day. He jumped higher than any man before, by thinking the opposite from everybody else. What others might have deemed a mistake, got him a medal. I think that this illustrates my point, that decisions deemed widely as 'wrong' can sometimes be right!
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