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The qualifying standards for the 2003 USA Junior Outdoor Track & Field Championships to be held in Pao Alto, California on 6-19/21-03 have recently been released at http://www.usatf.org/events/2003/USAJun ... ards.shtml

The pole vaulting qualifying standards are as follows:

Men: 4.93/16-2

Women 4.10/13-5.25

The qualifying standards for 2002 were Men, 16-0 and Women 12-0.

Now, I can understand the 2â€Â

That does seem pretty steep... if they wanted to narrow the field, I think 13-0 or 3.95 would have done the job!

I agree with Becca. I was thinking 3.90 or 4.00m would be reasonable. They don't need to limit the field THAT much!

4.10???? That is some BS. I think no more than 4 girls in HS will make this height, and a handful of collegians. 4.93 for the guys is cool though. Although when I went the standard was only 4.80, and we had 10 juniors over 5.20 that year. I doubt this year will top that year (98)

I doubt they would even have four HS.....no one in hs or college (freshman) has done it yet....the closest hs are Kira Costa and Julene Bailey. I think there are only 4 college freshman who would have a chance...Stacy Manuel, Chelsea Johnson, Rachael Viaou (sp?), and Samantha Shephard. Even if they all six do....a meet with 6 girls...when the age is supposedly 14-19....they may as well say 18-19. Also, what will opening height be....13'? Last year the qualifying height was 12' and opening height was 11'5.75".... This shouldn't be like elite competitions, where there are only 5-6 women. I think they just don't want the event to run more than an hour!

i agree with all of you. I think that that standard for females is too high at this point, though i dont think it will be too high in the all that distant future. There is a lot of talent coming up in the womens vault, and i think it is going to be awesome to be able to watch a competition of 14-18 year olds opening at 13' (maybe 12'6" lol) but still.....4.10 is just too high right now

Also...even in elite competition, the world records, high school records, etc. there is almost always ABOUT a 4' difference in men and women's records and qualifying heights for most meets. To put it into perspective...let's say they raise the qualification height for the guys that much...it would put it at 17' 7.25"...... hhmmmmm.....how many guys would qualify??? High school OR college freshmen.....????

Although I think its alittle high, I think they are doing the right thing. I think they are trying to stay away from extremely big fields like they have had in the past and limit the number of 10th and 11th graders in the meet. Wait and see, they will still have a good number of girls jump that high. You girls don't realize it now, but they are doing all of you guys a favor. LB

Well there were 27 girls that competed at last year's and 23 guys.....why not narrow the guy's field that drastically if that is what they want. Even Lacy Janson..who won women's last year didn't clear past 13' 1.5"....and in the guys' competition only one guy, Tommy Skipper cleared over the 16'2" that is the entry requirement this year. Why even have the vault at all then???? they could combine the guys and girls and have it over in about an hour. That's what they really want probably.

How many entrants are there usually in the other events?

Here is the address for the results of juniors. You can see how many were in finals and preliminaries of each event.

http://usatf.org/events/2002/JuniorNati ... ults.shtml

But for example, there were 30 in some preliminaries. There were 20 in girls' high jump....

How about this one. The qualifiying standard for the NCAA DI West Regional this year in the women's vault is 12'-0. The Pac-10 alone had 18 women vault that high last year! Talk about an all day competition.