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I found on YouTube this video of great Dave Roberts - two time world record holder, first man over 5.70 (18'8.25"), bronze medal from 1976 Montreal Olympic. He was one of the inspirations for Petrov - Warmerdam, Seagren, Roberts, Bell, Tully...
It is kind of strange that Russians learned more from US vaulting heritage than US coaches. Almost every issue of "Legkaya Atletika" (russian equivalent to Track&Field News) periodical) in eighties brought analyze of some US and other great world vaulters. Maybe Roman still has some issues to show you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9T4Nj6opw

He was doing essentially free take-off, lower hand is not locked, nice chest penetration, forward leg remain high, long and powerful swing with straight trail leg, no tuck... It is amazing how many similarities with Bubka's technique.
Ok, upper hand is not so straight and high as it should be, but this is very nice jump. After 40 years, still lot to learn from Dave Roberts.

I vaulted against Dave Roberts in about 7 meets in 1971-72. (I won one, he won 6.) Looking at this video, I'm a little surprised at what I see. His plant is late, and he gets jerked off the ground. He gets his trail leg back, but bent. He then recovers quite well. But if you look at when he releases the pole, you'll see that he's already halfway over the bar. It's a very low height - maybe not much more than 16'. Very strange, because in 1971-72, he usually started at 17' or so (occasionally at 16'6", but rarely lower). Can anybody take a guess how low that bar is? Can anybody guess how high his grip is? The poles I used were all 16'. That pole's longer than that. I'm guessing that it's a 17' pole. Did they have 5.00 meter poles back then? As far as I can remember, everyone used 16' poles in 1972.

I wish I knew when this vid was taken, and what height he's clearing.

I think you have to excuse this vault as simply a "warmup" vault - not indicative of his true form.

As far as him getting his trail leg back, that's quite different than the way I did it. His trail leg is bent at the knee to the extreme - over a 90° angle. It LOOKS like he's purposely pulling his leg back, but I can't be sure, as I've never seen him vault this way. It's actually a terrible vault, IMHO. He was much better than that. I'd have to see more vaults to see if he consistently does this. You must understand that I dropped out of the elite T&F scene after the Olympics, and never watched him vault after that - not even in the 1976 Olympics. The best I saw him jump in person was 5.49, when he won the 1972 AAU. He didn't pull his trail leg back that year, although we had certainly shared our technique with each other. He knew how I did it, and I knew how he planted (much better than the plant in this vid). I'm wondering if he developed this "bent trail leg" technique later? But from just this vid, I'm just thinking that this was a bad jump.

Does anyone have any other vids of him? I couldn't find anything on YouTube.

Kirk

good morning..

that was one of dave's worse takeoffs.. i have used that jump many times.. to show how to "NOT" have a free takeoff..

the steps were way to far out .. he reached.. still was out and "clutched" or pulled his arms in.. this was what Petrov talked about in Reno.. he said when the american vaulters took off "free" they felt "unsafe" and pulled there arms "in" when infact the best solution was to extend more.. this was the number one "thought" that i borrow from Petrov that day.. used it with Tully... gave tully a 10cm higher reach at the takeoff.. as it was doing with bubka..

but that jump of dave's was way to far out to even do that.. he just has to muscle his way through the jump.. that's what a 285 clean will do for you..

i will be home tuesday.. i hopefully will get a chance to ask him what pole he was on.. looks like a 16' or maybe a special 5 meter cat... before george started making pacer..........

dj

I have a dvd with this vault on it saying that he was jumping at 550..

That was Olympic Trials 1972 in Eugene. I was holding 15-6 and it was one of the worst vaults ever. I think the bar was at 5.40, but certainly no higher. The pole was one of the then-fairly-new green pacers. It was one of George's and Herb's early experiments with a broad sail-piece (you should have seen the "fast tapers" we tried about the same time). My L arm is still 4 inches longer than my R because of the takeoff.

Steve, Jan, and Bob smoked me after that vault. What a day.

Kirk, do you still do giants on the high bar? Remember those at Berkeley before the USSR meet? You were great.

Dave

Dave!!! What a great surprise finding you on PVP!!!

You may have missed out in the '72 Trials (bummer), but you made up for it in '75 and '76 with your 2 WRs and Olympic Bronze! Nice work!!!

You're joking about the giants, of course. I hung up my gym grips the same time I hung up my spikes.

If you remember the giants then you'll also remember two other drills that I showed you that day ...

One was the "Standing Shoot to a Handstand" drill. I never did perfect it, but the idea was that you stand under the bar, jump up, grab it, and invert to a handstand - all in one smooth motion. Usually, I would just clear the bar with my chest, and land back on the mat.

The other was what I now call my "Hinge/Whip Drill" - I forget what I called it back then. It looked like the downswing part of this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5LIiHmPlY

Notice the straight trail leg!

I got your email - thanks!

Warm regards,

Kirk

dlr wrote:That was Olympic Trials 1972 in Eugene. I was holding 15-6 and it was one of the worst vaults ever. I think the bar was at 5.40, but certainly no higher. The pole was one of the then-fairly-new green pacers. It was one of George's and Herb's early experiments with a broad sail-piece (you should have seen the "fast tapers" we tried about the same time). My L arm is still 4 inches longer than my R because of the takeoff.

Steve, Jan, and Bob smoked me after that vault. What a day.

Kirk, do you still do giants on the high bar? Remember those at Berkeley before the USSR meet? You were great.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Welcome to Pole Vault Power!

Wilson
vaultmd

For those of you non-master vaulters that are unfamiliar with Dave Roberts' stellar career, here's some highlights ...

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ro/dave-roberts-1.html

Dave Roberts
Full name: David Luther "Dave" Roberts
Gender: Male
Height: 6'2" (188 cm)
Weight: 179 lbs (81 kg)
Born: July 23, 1951 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, United States
Affiliations: Florida Track Club
Country: United States
Sport: Athletics

Medals: 1 Bronze (1 Total)

Biography
Rice’s Dave Roberts placed sixth at the 1970 NCAA and then took the title for the next three years. He won the AAU in 1972 and 1974, and was runner-up in the 1971 Pan-American Games. Although he was the AAU champion, Roberts could only place fourth at the 1972 Final Trials. However, after setting a world record of 18-6½ (5.65) in 1975 he defeated a class field at the 1976 Final Trials, taking the world record up to 18-8¼ (5.70). At the Montréal Olympics, Roberts took a calculated risk by passing at 18-2½ (5.55) and, after the two remaining competitors had failed at that height, Roberts himself missed three times at 18-4½ (5.60) and finished third on the countback. After graduating from Rice in 1974, Dave Roberts enrolled at the University of Florida Medical School, and later practiced as a surgeon.

Personal Best: PV – 18-8¼ (5.70) (1976).

There's additional info about the 1976 Montréal Olympics about Dave, so take a look at the link above for the full story.

Truly a stellar career!

I'm hoping that we can dig up some better vids of Dave - maybe vids of his WRs or Bronze medal performances!

Kirk