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From Staff & Special Reports

Thursday, June 25, 2009 8:28 AM CDT



KEEPING A HAND IN—Hammond Olympian pole vaulter Erica Bartolina is tutoring youngsters in the sport this summer after suffering a ruptured tendon in her right foot in January. File Photo
Erica Bartolina wasn't exactly planning on spending all her time this summer teaching others how to pole vault, but Hammond's Olympian vaulter is making the best of a bad situation.

Bartolina’s journey to the 2008 Beijing Olympics was one of the most followed local stories of 2008. She had ambitions of competing at the national championships in Eugene, Ore., this month, trying to qualify for a place at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

However, after suffering a ruptured tendon in her right foot in January, Bartolina had to re-evaluate her 2009 goals.

“I didn’t plan for this to be a rebuilding year, but that is what it has turned into,” Bartolina said. “But in some ways, taking the full year to recover may also set me up to be better the next few years. Now, I am able to focus on going back to the basics and making sure the fundamentals are solid.”

Changing years of learned habits in the pole vault — one of track and field’s most technical events — can take years for an athlete to develop different functional techniques. But Bartolina is convinced it will be worth the effort.
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“Many times athletes aren’t able to go back and change things to improve because it takes time to perfect them — like when Tiger (Woods) changed his swing,” Bartolina said of the world's No. 1 golfer. “Now I get to have time to break things down and change my technique to be better instead of preparing for an upcoming competition.

“I will be a better pole vaulter next year because of my current technical and mental training. I also have a stronger desire to go out there and be great since this year has been taken away from me.”

Meanwhile, Bartolina and her coach/husband Michael are staying busy. The couple has begun construction on a new indoor pole vault facility that will become Erica’s new training home as she prepares for a return for the 2010 indoor season as a prelude to her quest for her second career Olympic appearance in London in 2012.

The Bartolinas’ current indoor training facility in a previously abandoned warehouse off Morrison Boulevard has become a proving ground for some of the area’s most promising track and field athletes. Bartolina has been tutoring some of the top junior pole vaulters in the state.

“This has been an exciting change from my training and has helped me fill the void from not being able to vault while I rehab my foot,” Erica said. “They have given me a renewed love of the sport as I remember what it was like to be in their position.

“It’s been encouraging to see how many good young athletes there are in the Hammond area.”

They've got a pretty good mentor to work with as well. Bartolina came up big in the 2008 USA Olympic Trials in Eugene, registering a career best 14-11 to claim the third spot on the Olympic team. The actual Games themselves didn't work out so well, but the experience was priceless — as was the reaction from the Oregon native's newly adopted home town.

“I really enjoyed sharing my experiences with the community,” Bartolina said of the outpouring of support she witnessed during her Olympic run. “I cannot thank everyone enough for all the support and encouragement they continue to give me.”

Bartolina is now targeting the 2012 London Games. First, she has to get healthy and back in competitive shape in time for the indoor season in January.

“I have shifted my focus to the 2010 indoor World Championships in Doha, Qatar, next March,” Bartolina said. “The 2010 indoor season will start in early January, so that gives me seven months to prepare.

“It’s a long way to London in 2012, and I’ll have to start putting the work in now for that.”

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics ... 8496_x.htm

Bartolina seeks another Olympic bid


HAMMOND, La. (AP) — Beijing went badly for Erica Bartolina.

Now the pole vaulter, who makes her home in Louisiana, has an injured leg and is less than a year from her 30s.

Retirement is not at option, however. Redemption at the London Games in 2012 sounds a lot better to Bartolina, who'd prefer to be remembered for more than becoming the first Olympian to compete with only one eye.

"She's not going to retire until she physically can't compete anymore," said her husband and coach, Mike, who also is an assistant track and field coach at Southeastern Louisiana University. "She's a Brett Favre type."

Bartolina lost an eye as a baby in a car accident, limiting her depth perception, an obstacle she already has overcome to become an elite pole vaulter.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: London | Olympic Games | Brett Favre | Athletics

Had her leg been healthy this year, Bartolina would have planned her year around international competition. But a tendon has been bothering her for months, so she's decided to stay home to recover.

Still, what could be seen as a setback has provided an opportunity to do something else Bartolina enjoys.

"I've actually been coaching a lot of high school kids," she said. "It's been really great, because I wasn't able to pole vault and I had this energy and passion that I usually put into my training and I wasn't able to train. So I had to put it into something, so I put it into high school kids."

Bartolina, who grew up in Corvallis, Ore., and attended Texas A&M, was a longshot to advance past the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. Ranked 13th heading into the event, she earned a trip to China by finishing third.

"At the time, it was just so stressful that I didn't have the time to be like, 'Isn't this great? This is so fun,"' Bartolina said. "I had the goal of making the Olympic team for years and I had the goal of what I was going to do at the Olympics for like, a few weeks."

It was a difficult few weeks.

She was unable to enter the major European invitational meets leading up to the Olympics because the United States took her passport in order to obtain a quick visa for China.

"Erica didn't compete for 6 1/2 weeks," said Mike Bartolina, who also is her coach. "We started our season all over after the trials. You can try, but realistically that's going to be hard to get a good performance after that."

During the last week of practice before the Olympics, she hit her chin on the bar, which caused a minor concussion.

While her personal best had been 14 feet, 11 inches, she was unable to do better than 14-1.25 in Beijing and failed to advance beyond qualifying.

"That was pretty devastating for me," she said. "I still feel that periodically."

She doesn't have too much time to dwell on it now.

In addition to working out, coaching and caring for her husband as he recovers from back surgery, she's working toward the launch of Bartolina Athletics, which will be the couple's pole-vaulting academy.

If all goes as planned, it will be a regular training center for local athletes and a periodic destination for athletes from outside the area.

"If Erica had not gotten injured, we probably would have put (construction) off for a year or two," Mike Bartolina said. "Once we knew she wouldn't be able to compete, we were able to go ahead with it now."

The time off from competition wasn't what Erica Bartolina had envisioned, but she figures she's making the best of some down time before the pursuit of Olympic dreams resumes in full.

"The year after the Olympic year for a lot of Olympic athletes tends to be a little bit of a down year just because the Olympics are so stressful emotionally and physically that you kind of need a little more than your normal postseason rest to recover from it," Bartolina said. "I wasn't planning on having a rebuilding year, but it kind of worked out so that I am."

USA Today seems to love our women vaulters this week. AWESOME!! Bubba