Competitive sports are rules based so truly ground-breaking approaches are rare – but they do occur. Lateral thinking is about bypassing conventional assumptions, rewriting tactical playbooks, and finding unconventional solutions to competitive problems. Here are some examples of athletes, coaches, and tacticians who changed the game by looking sideways:
1. The Fosbury Flop (High Jump)
For decades, high jumpers cleared the bar facing downwards—using the scissors, eastern cut-off, or straddle techniques. At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Dick Fosbury revolutionized the event by turning his back to the bar, running in on a curve, and arching completely over head-first. Instead of trying to lift his entire body centre of mass over the bar, he kept his centre of mass under the bar while his body flexed over it section by section. It rendered every textbook obsolete overnight.
2. Douglas Jardine and Bodyline (Cricket)
During the 1932–33 Ashes series, legendary Australian batsman Don Bradman was scoring runs at an unstoppable rate. England captain Douglas Jardine challenged a cricketing assumption: bowlers must aim for the stumps. Jardine bypassed this entirely by instructing his fast bowlers to pitch short, rising deliveries aimed directly at the batsman’s body and ribs, backed by a heavily congested leg-side field. The goal wasn’t necessarily to take wickets with the ball hitting the stumps, but to force self-preservation, awkward fends, and defensive catches. This tactic was highly controversial and unpopular but it stopped the Bradman juggernaut.
3. The Underarm Delivery Loophole (Cricket)
In a tense 1981 One Day International between Australia and New Zealand, New Zealand needed six runs to tie off the final ball. Australian captain Greg Chappell instructed his bowler, brother Trevor Chappell, to roll the ball along the ground underarm so the batsman couldn’t possibly loft it for a six. While this followed the laws of cricket at the time it violated the spirit of the game. It led to an immediate rewriting of cricket’s laws.
4. The “Snoekie” Ice Skating Suit (Speed Skating)
At the 1998 Winter Olympics, the Dutch speed skating team introduced skin-tight, full-body suits designed with aerodynamic texturing modelled after shark skin (dubbed the Snoekie). Instead of focusing purely on leg power or traditional lightweight fabric, they looked at fluid dynamics and boundary-layer friction. The suit reduced drag so dramatically that Dutch skaters dominated the medal podium, prompting every other nation to scramble for aerodynamic redesigns.
5. The “Hack-a-Shaq” Strategy (Basketball)
Shaquille O’Neal was one of the most dominant centers in NBA history, virtually unstoppable close to the basket. But he had for one glaring weakness: his free-throw shooting. Coached by opponents like Gregg Popovich, teams began intentionally fouling Shaq far away from the ball, putting a poor free-throw shooter on the line repeatedly. Rather than trying to contest him physically at the rim (where he would score or draw a foul anyway), coaches shifted the battleground.
6. The “Pull-Down” Strategy in Marathon Running (Marathon)
In elite marathons, pacemakers traditionally run in front of the lead runner to break the wind. During the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in 2019, Eliud Kipchoge used a rotating formation of seven pacemakers running in a precise arrow shape (an inverted “V” or cluster) right in front and beside him. Borrowing from cycling peloton drafting and migratory bird aerodynamics rather than traditional athletics, the formation shielded Kipchoge from aerodynamic drag, enabling him to break the mythical two-hour barrier.
7. Eddie The Eagle’s Aerodynamic Adaptation (Ski Jumping)
When British ski jumper Michael Edwards (“Eddie the Eagle”) competed in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, he was self-funded, significantly heavier than his competitors, and visually impaired. Lacking elite coaching or gear, he had to adapt his posture. Because his skis naturally diverged in a “V” shape rather than parallel (the traditional style at the time), he leaned into it, discovering that holding his skis wide gave him slightly more aerodynamic lift. While he finished last, his unconventional stance predated the modern “V-style” technique that every elite ski jumper uses today.