Clearing the Bar: The Philosophy of the High Jump

Of all the track-and-field disciplines, the high jump had always been the one that held the least appeal for me. There was none of the awesome danger of the pole vault. It didn’t look like a freakish feat of strength or speed. It looked weird. Even the jumpers looked strange—tall and skeletal, all sinew and bone. They could clear a bar nearly eight feet high, the height of a standard ceiling. But on television it didn’t look like they were jumping over a truck. It looked liked they were goofing off. Who, after all, would jump over a truck like that?

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