Valery Brumel

The last Olympic high jump champion to use the straddle technique

Valery Nikolaevich Brumel, athlete: born Razvedki, Soviet Union 14 May 1942; three times married (one son, one stepson); died Moscow 26 January 2003.

Valery Brumel came from another age of athletics. He was the last Olympic high jump champion to use the straddle technique, before Dick Fosbury came along to revolutionise the event in Mexico City in 1968.

Brumel won the Olympic high jump silver medal for the Soviet Union in Rome in 1960 when aged just 18, and the following year he set the first of six world records, his ultimate effort of 2.28 metres in 1963 standing unequalled for seven years.

In an era of cinder tracks and high jumps often on to rudimentary landing beds and more often into sand pits, Brumel's elegance of technique and joy for competition stood out. In 1963, for instance, in a match between Great Britain and the Soviet Union in Volgograd, it seemed as if the high jump would have to be cancelled because the track was flooded. The Soviets poured petrol on the cinders, set it alight, and boiled off the water. With his jumps illuminated by the beam of car headlights, Brumel won his event, but Britain won the match for the first time on Russian soil.

Brumel will be best known for winning the Olympic title in a five-hour epic in Tokyo the following year. Not in his best form, and suffering a crisis of confidence, Brumel saw off his American rival, John Thomas, on countback.

In 1965, Brumel nearly lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident. Despite the damage, he did manage to jump to a high level again, managing 2.13m (just shy of 7ft) and, in his fifties, he also competed at the 1997 World Masters championships.

Brumel diverted most of his energies in later life towards achieving a doctorate in sports psychology. He also wrote a novel, a play and an opera libretto based on his own life story.

Steven Downes