Officiating Problems...

[BethelPV]

At the UofM meet yesterday, they split a girls field of 27 girls up into two sections and had 2 pits going at the same time. They gave each pit about an hour or maybe a little bit longer to warm up before the event. That was perfectly fine and a lot of the girls jumped really well.

For the guys competition, they decided to run us all on one pit, with somewhere around 20 people, which was fine. The only problem was they gave us about 25 minutes of pit time to warm up. I only got 1 full run approach in for my warmup, and had issues clearing bars the whole meet because of it. I know a lot of people no-heighted because of it too.

I know some of my woes were because of being really tired and my legs not being there from being in Naperville watching the meet all day the day before. I just think it sucks and is really stupid that they guy only gave us about 25 minutes of pit time for warm-ups and am wondering if anyone else has run into these types of issues...

[AVC Coach]

We run into that all of the time. You can carry a rule book and argue your case and it MIGHT help a little. This is the main reason that I volunteer to officiate the pole vault wherever I can. That way we can at least get a proper warm-up.

I tell my boys to be warm and "runway ready" as soon as the girls' last bar falls.

[utVOLter]

The officials at Georgia Tech in late March of this year also pulled that maneuver. 20 minutes to warm-up after a 2 hour rain-delay.

In my opinion, this type of situation is very unwise and should be absolutely unacceptable. The vault is already a risky event. The lack of a proper warm-up makes it even less safe and puts the health of the athletes in jeopardy.

The responsibility of track and field officials is to promote a safe and fair enviroment that allows for good competition. Limiting warm-ups below the legal time limit prevents the accomplishment of those criteria. I think vaulters should ban together and refuse to compete when they encounter such conditions. We can't afford to add any more risky variables to our event. If you get hurt, you can't jump anyway. The important thing is your health and some officials need to be reminded of this fact.

[Vaultref]

.... Limiting warm-ups below the legal time limit prevents the accomplishment of those criteria. ....

Not really picking on you here, so don't take this personal, but just what is or where is "the legal time limit" defined?

I'll save you some time.. it's not. The only rule verbiage I know of is "the length of all warm-up periods is defined by the games committee".

So "we" and I say we need to at least get something better than that in the book. Is 1 hour good for 20 vaulters, how about 25 or 30 or even 12 or less?
I don't have the answer but all I see and hear is the time is inconsistent from place to place.

[drcurran]

I'm an official and if anything I get "yelled at" for giving too much warm up. More than once when being told to "hurry up and get this thing underway", I've asked what is the rush? Do you have to be some place? We have all day and half the night it is day light savings time. My suggestion would be to have the coaches go to the meet director as a group and raise a "stink" and use the word SAFETY loud and often when pleading their case. The last thing we want is an injury because someone did not get enough warm up time. OK just my .02

Dan

[tennpolevault]

I have experienced a number of less than logical situations while coaching this year. In fact, those types of situations were fairly common during my 10 years of vaulting. Most officials out there are really fans of the sports and enjoy being out there and seeing the athletes do well. I have met many nice officials over the years. Very rarely but still sometimes it appears that an official can take the rule book too exactly and ignore common sense. I think that it is those "power trip" officials who ruin the competitions and make life miserable for the vaulters, coaches and parents. Its ashamed to see an athlete totally lose their rhythm while 4-8 people spend 20 minutes screwing with the pit and measuring. I don't care what a rule book says, sometimes you have to use your brain. Maybe its my rural Georgia upbringing that makes me question......."that -@$%#)*&&*% just aint right!". I was quite embarassed to see a HUGE apron of concrete recently added around the Georgia Tech vault pit. Wow what a lawsuit that will be when somebody does miss. I hate to say it, but they WILL miss eventually considering all the people that jump there.
My least favorite rule this year said that if you are the only competitor in a multi-events competition, you only get ONE minute between jumps (NCAA). How insane is that? My hepper was the only guy @ like 5.10m and took about 8 jumps in 13 minutes. It was at Penn State of all places. Go figure

[Vaultref]

I was recently at GT this year and the concrete you mention was covered.
NCAA does not have any specific coverage for this anyway, but did anyone happen to ask it be covered?

One minute between jumps in the combined events PV? really. A consecutive jump at the same bar is 3 minutes in the combined PV event whether you are the only one left or whether there are more than four left.

I'll also go on record to say that with one vaulter left in the combined event PV, that every jump is 3 minutes. I known of many officials who agree with this timing and call it that way.
I will agree that the rules are not very clear for the combined event vertical jumps and I have submitted a rule clarification to include a timing table exactly like the one you see in the USATF book. Do you know what I'm referring too? If not, you can find it on-line and see the table. If that doesn't get the timing rule consistently called from coast to coast, I don't know what will.

[tennpolevault]

I am glad they covered that concrete. It looked quite menacing. I gave the VT coach the head up before the ACC and he was going to be proactive and call ahead for it to be safe. Hopefully someone saw that and rose some eyebrows regarding safety.

As far as the Penn State meet, I was sure that rule was wrong but I didn't have a rule book and he whipped one out so its hard to argue. I'll have the rules next go round. Thanks for the link and advice.

[vtcoach]

Yes. Thanks for the warning Russ. We were able to contact the ACC conference office ahead of time and in conjunction with the staff at Georgia Tech they were at least able to get some rubber surface down on top of the concrete.

[vtcoach]

Cutting warm-up's short rarely saves much time anyway because you get a lot more 2nd and 3rd attempt clears at the opening bar and because most everyone just comes in a bar or two lower then they would if they had had a proper warm-up period.

[Lax PV]

Cutting warm-up's short rarely saves much time anyway because you get a lot more 2nd and 3rd attempt clears at the opening bar and because most everyone just comes in a bar or two lower then they would if they had had a proper warm-up period.

Good insight...

[dougb]

All of you who are having problems with the way a meet is run I quote
Tim McMichael .

There is so much more that goes into competing well at major meets than the actual competition. The process of actually getting to the venue rested and ready with all of your equipment is a major undertaking. The larger the meet, the more steps you have to go through to get this to happen. Something can go wrong at any one of these steps: the shuttle can be late; the entrance to the arena might be guarded by security who take their sweet time checking credentials; your poles might be late getting to the facility. (At some meets they take them away from you the day before the competition to check them for rule violations.) And these are just some of the things that can go wrong. It is wise to plan ahead and run through all the possible contingencies as you prepare. In my experience, everything, even relaxation time, has to be a part of the plan to arrive ready to compete. From the time I stepped on the plane till my back hit the pit on my last attempt I was working. I know that everybody else who was a dangerous competitor was doing the same. The guys who went to the beach or to the clubs or out to play lazer tag had a difficult time competing against people like Earl Bell or Mike Tully or Pat Manson or half a dozen other athletes you could count on jumping right at their PR on a regular basis.

In other words be ready for anything, and don't expect anything.