IAAF Pole Vault Year in Review

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.iaaf.org/news/newsid=63230.html


2011 - End of Year Reviews – Jumps

Monte Carlo – In the third installment of their eight-part 2011 ‘End of Season’ review, Statisticians A. Lennart Julin (SWE) and Mirko Jalava (FIN) take an in-depth look at the JUMPS.


Pole Vault

2011 seemed to be a rather mediocre year for the Pole Vault during most of the outdoor season with performances at 5.80m+ few and far between. Only Renaud Lavillenie of France showed any kind of consistency at that level as his main rival during recent years, Australia’s Steve Hooker, struggled with injuries and only had two meets (5.45m and 5.60m) coming into the World Championships.

The strongest challenger to Lavillenie instead was Malte Mohr who had very firmly established himself as the clear No 1 on the always very competitive German vaulting scene. Looking at the Samsung Diamond League both Lavillenie and Mohr contested all six meets before Daegu compiling 4-1-X-1-1-1 and 1-2-X-2-4-2 records, the X’s coming in the atrocious New York weather.

Height-wise Lavillenie had four DL’s at 5.73m-5.90m and Mohr four at 5.72m-5.81m, underlining that they were the top favourites for the World Championships. In Daegu the qualification seemed to confirm that this was some kind of off year for the event with a mere 5.50m being sufficient to reach the final. But Lavillenie and Mohr were of course among those that breezed through the preliminary round by clearing 5.65m.

Everything seemed set for a quite lucklustre final with the hope for a quality winning height resting solely upon Lavillenie. But then something very strange happened and when the final could be summarised it certainly turned out to be classified as among the very best ever with only Atlanta ‘96 (3x5.92m + 3x5.86m), Edmonton ’01 (6.05m + 5x5.85m) and Sydney ’00 (4x5.90m) showing comparable quality concerning “top depth”.

What caused this sudden and complete change of face for the event on the evening of 29 August is not possible to say but there certainly was a collective “rise to the occasion”: 14 cleared 5.65m and after 5.75m with the bar raised to 5.85m there still remained seven jumpers in the competition – out of which five went on to try 5.90m! When the dust had settled the top-7 had four PBs, two “non-square meet” PBs and only Lavillenie failed to get some kind of PB.

So the favourite had to settle for a bronze and the co-favourite Mohr for a fifth place despite both clearing 5.85m. The top-2 positions instead went to Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski and Cuba’s Lazaro Borges. The winner had come to Daegu with a very mixed seasonal record (e.g. lost five of eight meets on home soil!) and very nearly went out already in the qualification just scraping by in a tie for 12th place after managing only 5.50m (failing at 5.60m). But in the final he was a completely different athlete: 5.50m, 5.65m and 5.75m at first attempts, one failure at 5.85m before passing until 5.90m which he cleared on his second and last attempt.

Borges showed great tenacity making both 5.75m (PB tied) and 5.90m on 3rd and last attempts. But his 5.90m clearance was even more impressive than Wojciechowski’s and although they both failed thrice at 5.95m the height didn’t appear to be out of reach for anyone of them.

So in the end the 2011 season still turned out quite OK for the Pole Vault, especially if one takes into account that the top-7 in the World Championships were all born between 1986 and 1989, i.e. they are between 22 and 25 years old. But if one looks a little bit deeper in the lists 2011 really was a quite mediocre year: The number of 5.70m and 5.60m jumpers compared to the previous pre-Olympic year (2009) had gone down from 38 and 65 all the way to 22 and 47 this year.

One important explanation is the regress of the USA. In 2007 they hade five over 5.80m, four more over 5.70m and six additional over 5.60m for a total of 15 at 5.60m+. In 2011 the corresponding numbers were 1, 3, 2 fore a total of 6! When people like Hartwig, Mack, Hysong, Stevenson et al left the scene there was no new generation ready to fill their places. How could this happen given the very strong US tradition in this event?

Typically the average age of the US trio competing in Daegu was 32 years with the top man placing equal ninth. Russia is another previous top nation that seems to be struggling now (12th place for only finalist) while Poland got 1-4-7 from a trio vaulters aged between 22 and 25 -something that elicited memories from their “good old days” some three decades ago with Slusarski, Kozakiewicz et al.




Pole Vault

After some very good performances indoors, expectations were high for the Pole Vault, but injuries ruined the outdoor season for more than one vaulter. American Jenn Suhr was thought to be the number one athlete this year, but after a good 4.86m American record indoors injuries forced the 29-year-old to the sidelines during the summer. She did clear a world leading 4.91m in a small meet in Rochester, New York in late July, but clearly was not her best before Daegu and finished in fourth place there only ending up with a 4.70m clearance.

Yelena Isinbayeva also completed her comeback after taking the 2010 outdoor season off, but things didn’t exactly go as planned for the most decorated female pole vaulter of all time. The two-time Olympic and World Championships gold medallist was in good form indoors clearing 4.85m in Donetsk in February, where she also made her latest tries at a World indoor record. But then injury came and the Russian could not handle the setback. For a long time it was unclear if she could even make it to Daegu, but a season start in the middle of July in Heusden (4.60m) and then a Samsung Diamond League win in Stockholm a couple of weeks later (4.76m) were enough to convince her to compete at the World Championships. But it was not to be for her either with the world record holder not looking like a five-metre jumper and finishing in sixth place in Daegu.

Elsewhere the results were coming in slow too as 4.75m remained the world leader until mid-July when German Martina Strutz set a national record 4.78m and then right before Daegu Jenn Suhr cleared 4.79m in London. In terms of earlier results during the season, the Daegu final was actually a good one. 30-year-old Brazilian Fabiana Murer crowned a career which has been steadily on the rise with an outdoor World title in addition to her 2010 World Indoor Championships gold. Murer equalled her own South American record from 2010 winning with a 4.85m clearance in Daegu with Strutz in second place with a German record 4.80m, her second of the 2011 season. In third place, 31-year-old Russian Svetlana Feofanova returned to the World Championships medal podium after a four-year break. The veteran, who won her first major medal in Edmonton 2001 with a silver and won the world title in Paris two years later, cleared a season’s best 4.75m for the bronze.

The United States heads this event with 22 athletes in the world top 100. Germany has 13 for second and Russia nine for third.