Stamp Errors, The Fosbury Flop
This 2 Rials Ajman single value is part of a stamp series released on December 15, 1968 in honour of gold medallists at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. This particular stamp is dedicated to the man who won the high jump competition gold medal, Richard ‘Dick’ Fosbury.
He won the gold medal with a jump of 2.24m, with a hitherto completely unknown jumping style. This style, which is generally used today, still bears the name of its inventor, namely the ‘Fosbury-Flop’. The image on the stamp is not the Fosbury Flop, but a ‘scissor jump’ that was still a common style 52 years ago. The representation of the medal is also incorrect in two ways: The front of the 1968 Mexico Olympic medals show a goddess of victory holding a laurel wreath in her raised arm – and not, as shown on the stamp, an old Mexican calendar. And the back of the medals were not individually designed for each sport, but the same for all medals.
