National Depth--2005

[roger/over]

Some participants in the PVP Forum may also be subscribers to the t-and-f mailing list. Those will know that an annual project for me is posting summaries of national depth, as represented by the number of top-100 rankings for each country and the highest ranking of those. My summaries include only countries with three or more in the top 100. The data base is the world deep lists provided to his subscribers by Mirko Jalava <tilastopaja.net>. This year, Mirko has added this sort of summary to his website, but he has continued his permission for me to use his data for this purpose.

For PVP, I'm only posting the vault summaries. If anyone would like the complete men's and women's events, drop me a note and I'll e-mail them. They may be a little easier to read in that format, since I've never mastered the knack of posting columnar material on PVP.

Incidentally, Mirko's deep list for the men's vault ranks 509 athletes at 5.00 meters and above; his list for the women's vault, 777 athletes at 3.60 and above.

WOMEN'S POLE VAULT 2005
Country Top 101 Highest

United States 22 4
Germany 11 14
Russia 8 1
France 6 7
Poland 5 2
China 4 10
Canada 4 12
Greece 4 15
Australia 3 17
Sweden 3 20
Ukraine 3 26
Brazil 3 28

32 countries represented
100th = 4.16m = 13'7 3/4"


MEN'S POLE VAULT 2005
Country Top 105 Highest

United States 27 2
France 14 22
Russia 9 13
Germany 8 3
Ukraine 5 10
Australia 4 1
Netherlands 3 11
China 3 29
Finland 3 48

29 countries represented
100th = 5.45 = 17'10 1/2"

[ADTF Academy]

I would love to see the stat on how many total vaulters do each of those countries have.


Lets say Germany on the women's side. 11 world ranked out of how many? If they have lets say 300 women vaulters that actually compete and take it serious in the entire country. Thats 11 out of 300 are world ranked.


Do we have the most because we have the greatest pool to chose from?

Lets say we have well over a 1,000 women vaulters competeing on a regular basis. 22 out of 1,000 is not as impressive if you look at it that way. The same applies on the Men's side.

Alan how many men and women vaulters do you think Austrilia has total that are competing on a regular basis?

Just an interesting twist to your post.

[achtungpv]

I would love to see the stat on how many total vaulters do each of those countries have.


Lets say Germany on the women's side. 11 world ranked out of how many? If they have lets say 300 women vaulters that actually compete and take it serious in the entire country. Thats 11 out of 300 are world ranked.


Do we have the most because we have the greatest pool to chose from?

Lets say we have well over a 1,000 women vaulters competeing on a regular basis. 22 out of 1,000 is not as impressive if you look at it that way. The same applies on the Men's side.

Alan how many men and women vaulters do you think Austrilia has total that are competing on a regular basis?

Just an interesting twist to your post.

I think you hit the nail on the head. I hear coaches saying all the time, "hell we won the last 2 olympics, we must be doing something right."

When you've got a pool of 40,000 vaulters (the # thrown around fairly often) to develop from, hopefully lightning will strike once or twice. How many vaulters are there in Russia? Maybe 1,000? In Australia? 500? Those at the very top in the US are doing it right, but 99.9% are doing it wrong.

[SlickVT]

Oh, come on.

Just because we have alot of vaulters in the US does not mean that we are pole vaulting incorrectly. Nor does it mean that everyone else is pole vaulting correctly. That is an ABSURD statement.

Yes, we have more people in the top 100 than everyone else, but what are you going to do, encourage Americans to quit so we can see a correct comparison to the rest of the world?

I say bring on more vaulters. Its good for track.

[VaultNinja]

I'm with SlickVT on this one.
Something else to think about is that vaulters in the US aren't given the same opportunities as in alot of other countries. Since track and field is still a spectator sport overseas, its athletes get taken care of even if they are not the cream of the crop.
It definetally helps if you don't have to work a full time job and you can just train all the time.
We should be giving praise to the those US vaulters that have put our country at the top of that list because they have worked there a**'s off to get there.

[ADTF Academy]

No one is saying we are not proud of them. In fact their dedication is amazing.


You say the opportunity is not as great in the US. Besides based on not having big enough pits how many highschools do you know that offer the vault. How many colleges do you know that offer the vault.

So with that in mind from age roughly 14ish if you start pole vaulting late you can have roughly 9 years of training under no working situation.

9 years from age 14 to 23.

If you had the chance or desire to be great you would make it work. There are more job opportutnities in the US finding a small part time job to pay the bills as you continue to train. Is it easy NO way. Those that want it bad enough do it.

All I was simply saying was with the greater number of vautlers because of the increased number of facilities we have and equipment we have I feel we should be producing even greater results.

We do have the top vaulters thats not an issue. What about the overall national average. What would you consider a good jump for a male or women in the US.

[VaultNinja]

Thanks for the response.
I don't know if I can define a "good jump" by a certain hieght but....
I think that a jump of 5.75 or greater for men and 4.50 or greater for women separates them from the rest of the vault community. I realize to some that might seem high, and to others low, but to me those two hieghts seem like they have been major break points.

[roger/over]

When Ninja proposed the height that separates the best from the rest as 4.50m for women and 5.75m for men, the 4.50 sounded about right to me, but I had to do some checking on how that might apply to last season's results for men.

When I checked, I found 14 women at or above 4.50m and 26 men at or above 5.75m. Maybe 5.80m might be a more equivalent height for men, since there were 13 at or above that in 2005.

A better test of Ninja's suggested separators, though, would be who they identify. Here's what I found:

Women at or above 4.50m

5.01 Isinbayeva
4.83 Rogowska
4.70 Pyrek
4.60 O'Hara
4.60 Sauer
4.60 Dragila
4.60 Boslak
4.55 Schwartz
4.55 Polnova
4.53 Shuying
4.51 Hamackova
4.51 Ellis
4.50 Elisdottir
4.50 Hingst

Yes, those are all names I would have included in the best of current vaulters. All except O'Hara, Sauer, Schwartz and Hingst have been national record holders. And the only names I see farther down the list that may be as recognizable are Whitlock and Grigorieva. I think probably Ninja nailed that one.

Men at or above 5.80m

6.00 Burgess
5.96 Walker
5.93 Lobinger
5.90 Stevenson
5.87 Hooker
5.85 Mack
5.83 Sawano
5.83 Gibilisco
5.81 Miles
5.81 Korchmyd
5.80 Blom
5.80 Pavlov
5.80 Otto

If I go on down the list to 5.75, the most notable additions amongst the next 13 would be Markov, Buller, Ecker, Galfione, and Hysong. Maybe a cutoff point that leaves those names out makes 5.80 too high.

It might open up a whole new can of worms, but I wonder whether there still are more men and boys who are vaulting today than there are women and girls. Just looking at the local (Victoria, BC) scene, the event may be more popular amongst females.

[rainbowgirl28]

If I go on down the list to 5.75, the most notable additions amongst the next 13 would be Markov, Buller, Ecker, Galfione, and Hysong. Maybe a cutoff point that leaves those names out makes 5.80 too high.

Yeah but those are all guys that were well over 5.75 in the past, which is why they are so recognizable now.

[VaultNinja]

Thats all good data, and 5.80 is definetally a seperation point for any nation but......The question was "what would you consider a good jump for male and female in the U.S."

I might have to agree with you more internationally. Its just 5 centi's anymway I guess.