PoleVaultPower.com

Hello everybody, I haven't been on this site in a couple years. Back in high school Joe Dial sent me some pictures of him for an art project and I have recently stumbled uppon them. I figured I'd get them out to the internet somehow, to some people who would appreciate them. He happens to be one of my favorie vaulters since he was such a short guy jumping so high. As a fellow short guy, I am truly jealous of his achievements

30 years into the sport and Joe remains the best pole vaulter I've ever seen.

Does anyone have some good video of Joe, I would love to see him jump. (That 19' jump was a year before I was born)

I just love seeing old photos like these. Thanks.

IAmTheWalrus wrote:Does anyone have some good video of Joe, I would love to see him jump. (That 19' jump was a year before I was born)

There is a couple on youtube.

Is the photo of the 19' vault a composite? Or did they actually have people on the mats during the vault ( I would assume to hold the bar on because of a tailwind)? Also, was the guy on the front buns catching the pole so Joe wouldn't come down on it?

Spike, you should put up the resulting project too if you can find it

master wrote:Is the photo of the 19' vault a composite? Or did they actually have people on the mats during the vault ( I would assume to hold the bar on because of a tailwind)? Also, was the guy on the front buns catching the pole so Joe wouldn't come down on it?

Yes, back in the "good old days" we always had "pole catchers". I was surprised when I got back into the sport a few years ago to see that the vaulters just let their poles fall to the ground. This would have got you a few extra laps in the old days. Don't know if we were just overly protective of the poles back then or if pole technology is so much better that you don't need to worry about it anymore.

Although you were supposed to wait for the pole to be pushed back to you, most pole catchers in high school were very aggressive and would jump onto the mat to catch the pole before it hit the crossbar and knocked it off (which was very easy to do back then as it was usually a light weight aluminum bar on metal pegs - no rubber ends). Of course, that would have never been a problem for Dial as his pole would have easily passed under the crossbar. The pole catcher in this case is just preventing the pole from crossing beneath the crossbar in the strong head wind and "kissing" him on the backside.

Which brings up a interesting question - just how high of a push off is that? I originally saw the pole that the guy on the pit was holding up and thought that was the pole Dial was jumping with. Only upon closer study did I see his actually pole was a couple of feet below that. Wow!

Look at the area around the pit. If he misses to the right he will come down on a nice 4' high pointed steel fence post. I guess there have been some advances in the safety dept.

Vaultdadof2 wrote:Look at the area around the pit. If he misses to the right he will come down on a nice 4' high pointed steel fence post. I guess there have been some advances in the safety dept.

They were highly motivated to land in the middle of the pit, unlike today's vaulters.

Vaultdadof2 wrote:Look at the area around the pit. If he misses to the right he will come down on a nice 4' high pointed steel fence post. I guess there have been some advances in the safety dept.

The posts are probably further away from the pit than they look, and the liklihood of getting impaled on one is probably quite low. However, they're probably not as far away as they should be ... anything less than 4' is too close, IMHO. And they should be slanted outwards, to eliminate ANY possibility of a serious injury.

This is just common sense ... it doesn't even cost anything to be super-safe!

Kirk

ras wrote:Yes, back in the "good old days" we always had "pole catchers". I was surprised when I got back into the sport a few years ago to see that the vaulters just let their poles fall to the ground. This would have got you a few extra laps in the old days. Don't know if we were just overly protective of the poles back then or if pole technology is so much better that you don't need to worry about it anymore.

I began to learn the vault as a sophomore in HS in 1962. We had a sawdust pit, steel and aluminum poles and yes, those terrible triangular cross section cross bars that would cut into your shins, forearms and head if you dared confront one of them. And yes we caught the poles (at least once we started using a fiberglass pole the following year).

My observation included seeing two people on the mats. I don't recall ever recall seeing that; but I was never in a competition where the bar was at 19' I was just thinking about the potential for an accident if the vaulter were ever to have a problem. And I also don't remember ever seeing someone get on the pit to retrieve a pole. They waited for it to come back toward the runway. Of course back when I vaulted in HS and college we didn't have pits that you could "walk" on. Oh the memories of the net bags of pieces of scrap foam rubber... just put them in the location where you expected to land .... and then hope like hell you did!