PoleVaultPower.com

Here is my preview of the Olympic Trials Men's Pole Vault competition.

Brad Walker - Brad's only competition is himself. There's no one else in the US right now who can come close to Brad when he is on. But Brad is also his own worst enemy and has had a rough past few years. He set the American record in Eugene, but he also NH'd there at USAs last summer. He seems to be much improved in both heights and consistency this year, and shouldn't have any trouble making the team. He jumped 5.80+ three times indoors, and has jumped 5.72 outdoors this season.

Derek Miles - Derek has been very busy coaching at USD this year. He is doing a fantastic job at it, his girls have seen huge PRs this year and he has qualified several of them for the Olympic Trials. Derek hasn't jumped much this year himself, mostly indoors. Unfortunately, he's had an achilles problem flare up, and according to media reports it's been getting worse, which is why he hasn't really jumped outdoors. He has the experience to jump high with minimal jumps, and it might not take anything spectacular to make the team, so I wouldn't count him out. He jumped 5.60 indoors.

Jeremy Scott - Jeremy has not jumped much this year either, because of injuries. He has a season best of only 5.42i. Maybe the time off will mean we see a healthy, well-rested athlete at the Trials?

Andrew Irwin - This true college freshman has been on fire, setting a string of impressive PRs culminating with hitting A standard, 5.72, at SECs. But a poor performance at regionals kept him home from NCAAs. Can he turn the page and jump better than ever at the Trials? Or have his spirits been crushed by a disappointing end to a long collegiate season?

Jack Whitt - Jack has had a very solid year, winning most of his meets, but had failed to live up to expectations in terms of bars cleared. A shoulder injury has reportedly been holding him back. But the weekend before NCAAs, he jumped 5.72 at ORU's indoor facility, and reportedly his shoulder is feeling much better. He won NCAAs with 5.65 and is carrying some serious momentum into this meet.

Jordan Scott - Jordan recently jumped 5.72 at a legit, surveyed, street vault in Kansas. He previously had a lifetime best of 5.71 in Austin, and a 5.70 on a downhill runway at the Factory Vault last year. He won an NCAA Championship in crappy weather in Eugene, so it's not out of the question that he could pop a big jump at the Trials when the pressure is on. His second best jump of the season is a 5.60 in Chula Vista, then a 5.50 overseas.


These are the only athletes currently eligible to make the team. To make the team, they need to make it to finals, then place in the top three of these athletes. No one else matters… unless…


SOMEONE ELSE CLEARS 5.72?


Let's take a peek at who else has a shot at clearing 5.72. If they haven't already hit the standard, it has to be done at the Trials, USATF will not consider any marks after the fact (no mark chasing).

Mark Hollis - Mark has jumped 5.75 twice before, but his best since 2011 is 5.63i. He has jumped 5.60 twice this year. Mark is a two-time National Champion. He travels to compete a lot and knows how to make bars when it matters. I predict that he will place fairly high at USAs, but will it be enough to hit A standard?

Scott Roth - Scott jumped 5.72 last year, just a few weeks before the qualifying window opened. This year he has been adjusting to life as a post-collegiate athlete. He has competed lightly, placing 2nd at USA indoors with 5.60 and a season best outdoors of 5.50. He has been fighting some light hamstring issues, but jumped 5.50 in Eugene earlier this season and 5.53 in Chula Vista.

Jason Colwick - Jumped 5.72 twice in 2009 and jumped 5.71 in 2010. He has since moved to Seattle and trains with Pat Licari at UW. He has competed lightly since then and has been struggling with some injuries, but he is a talented athlete with great potential. If he jumped 5.72 at the Trials it wouldn't be completely out of nowhere.

Men's Pole Vault (Prelim) 5:30pm

Event Records
Record Tag Mark Athlete Affiliation Date
World W 6.14m 20-1 ¾ Sergey Bubka UKR July 31 1994
American A 6.04m 19-9 ¾ Brad Walker Nike June 8 2008
Meet M 5.90m 19-4 ¼ Tim Mack Nike July 11 2004
OG A 5.72m 18-9 ¼

Progression: 5.30-5.40-5.45-5.50-5.55-5.60-5.65
Advance 12 - Use Rule 180.5b, or all autos if greater

Flight 1
Pos Name Affiliation
1 Nikita Kirillov Georgia Tech
2 Jacob Pauli Unattached
3 Cale Simmons Air Force Academy
4 Brad Walker Nike
5 Darren Niedermeyer Jump High Athletic Club
6 Nick Mossberg Unattached
7 Jordan Scott Unattached
8 Levi Keller Unattached
9 Logan Cunningham Unattached
10 Mark Hollis Nike
11 Derek Miles Nike
12 Scott Roth Unattached






Flight 2
Pos Name Affiliation
1 Mike Arnold Idaho State
2 Dustin DeLeo Unattached
3 Rory Quiller Unattached
4 Seth Arnold Unattached
5 Jack Whitt Oral Roberts
6 Michael Woepse U C L A
7 Andrew Irwin Arkansas
8 Nick Frawley U.S. Air Force
9 Christopher Swanson Unattached
10 Jeremy Scott Nike
11 Paul Litchfield Unattached
12 Jason Colwick Unattached

http://www.argusleader.com/article/2012 ... Sports%7Cs


Vaulter Miles fighting injury for Olympic ticket
USD alum competing, coaching in trials for London games
12:16 AM, Jun 22, 2012 | Comments


Written by
Mick Garry

Two-time Olympic pole vaulter Derek Miles’ attempt to make the U.S. team this year is being complicated by an injury that just won’t go away.

The 39-year-old University of South Dakota coach and alumnus will be helping guide Coyote athletes Bethany Buell and Emily Grove through their first Olympic Trials competition today in Eugene, Ore., and then will be competing in the men’s qualifying round himself on Monday.

He is hoping the extra days will buy him some time in quieting a persistent Achilles issue that has altered his training for months, but it’s pretty obvious he’s not overwhelmingly optimistic about that.

“In terms of the competition, you’d have to say this could be the easiest team to make of all the Trials I’ve been involved in,” Miles said. “U.S. pole vaulting is down a little bit right now, which makes my injury seem even a little more frustrating.”

Miles finished fourth at the Trials in 2000, then made the team in 2004, finishing seventh in Athens. He won the Trial competition in 2008 with a jump of 19-0.25 and then just missed out on a bronze medal, finishing fourth in Beijing. As recently as last year, as a 38-year-old, he was the USA Outdoor champion.

Tendinitis became a problem in his Achilles this past winter, however, and it has not reacted well to treatment. He has competed in regional meets the past few months, with victories at the Cyclone Invitational at Iowa State, the Jack Johnson Classic in Minneapolis and the Bill Hillenbrand Invitational in Vermillion. But staying sharp on a bad leg has been a struggle.

“I’ve tried to make it through the last three months, hoping it’s going to improve but it’s been getting worse and worse,” Miles said. “There was a time when I could get loosened up and it would settle down for a while but now when I push it, it shuts down. Every jump is going to take its toll, so limiting the jumps I need to make a height will be very important. I’ll try to make the best of the situation and go from there. I guess all injuries involve unfortunate timing, but this has been very unfortunate.”



Miles entered this year as the third-ranked U.S. vaulter, behind Brad Walker and Norfolk, Neb., native Jeremy Scott.

“I don’t think there’s really a favorite this year,” Miles said. “It stacks up as a wide-open competition. It’s really going to depend on who shows up to jump at the meet.”

Miles will be able to take his mind off his own competition today when Buell, a sophomore from St. Louis, Mo., who took third in the NCAA national meet earlier this month, makes her debut in Eugene. Grove, a freshman from Pontiac, Ill., who was seventh at the NCAA meet and hit the ‘B’ qualifying mark for the trials, also will compete at tonight’s trials.

Buell’s attempt to make the team will be difficult. She has the 11th-best qualifying mark entering the competition with a personal best of 14-5.5, but would likely have to clear somewhere around 15 feet to make the team. Watertown native Leslie Brost, a 14-foot vaulter at North Dakota State, will also be trying to get into the finals.

“The plan is to enjoy this,” Buell said. “I want to take it all in and have a great experience. I want to jump well and have fun doing it.”

Because Miles is her coach, Buell knows most of the top jumpers in the U.S., which may help with the nerves as she tries today to finish in the top 12 in the qualifying round and advance to the finals, which will be held on Sunday.

Jenn Suhr, Lacy Janson and Kylie Hutson are the top-ranked American women vaulters. Suhr was the silver medalist at Beijing in 2008 with a jump of 15-9.

“It’s every track person’s goal to get to the Olympics,” USD women’s coach Lucky Huber said. “The second is to be a part of a competition where you can get a spot on that team. Bethany has had such a great year I think she’s ready for this experience. If she can come out of the preliminaries and make the finals, that’s the ultimate goal.”

http://normantranscript.com/sports/x399 ... -to-London


June 25, 2012
Jack Whitt: From Longfellow to London
By Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript

NORMAN — Here’s how it began. “I was pretty athletic, and then when middle school came around, they had this award called the Lions Pride Award at Longfellow, and you had to have three sports (to have a chance to win it),” Jack Whitt said. “So, I kind of had to do track if I was going to get that award. I thought about it and my dad kind of mentioned something.”

The pole vault.

Why not?

It wasn’t his only event, not then.

But he picked it up.

He wasn’t terrible.

“I did the four-by-eight (hundred relay), I did the high jump, I think I did hurdles. I wanted to try pole vault, and I was pretty decent at it,” Whitt said. “I wasn’t good by any means, but I did go to meets, and I did win medals, and I thought that was pretty cool.”

Eventually, it became his only sport.

“High school rolled around, and I tried the football/basketball thing, but you really had to pick one sport if you wanted to excel in it, and pole vaulting was sort of different,” he said. “It wasn’t the same routine, and I kind of fell in love with it.”

It didn’t hurt that Whitt had a coach, Mike Ramsey, still the track and field skipper at Norman North, who understood the demands of a very different event and the cost of excellence. Because Whitt could have helped the T-Wolves in a bunch of events.

Ramsey didn’t make him.

“After talking to him, and him loving it so much,” Ramsey said, “I just said, ‘OK, why don’t you just go with that.”

Whitt remains grateful.

“He was probably one of the main reasons I was so good in high school,” he said of his old coach. “I know tons of coaches that if you’re doing offseason, they’re just going to murder you, murder you, murder you; and, if you’re in season, they don’t worry about pole vaulting, they want you running around with the other kids, doing their workouts. And to run a full workout and then go jump afterwards, you’re just asking to get hurt.”

Today, pole vault preliminaries begin at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. The finals are Thursday. Three will make the team sent to the London Olympics.

Whitt could be one of them.

Here’s where it has taken him.

Ramsey and Whitt remember it slightly differently.

Ramsey remembers Whitt jumping 13-6 at regionals or the Mid-State Conference meet, and then following it up with a 15-0 gold medal vault at the state meet. Whitt believes he improved about a foot to bring home his first state title but is certain where he began his sophomore season, clearing 11-6.

But the narrative was clear.

Whitt was a pole vaulter on the move, improving by leaps and bounds, soon competing only with himself in Oklahoma high school circles and winning those battles, too.

He jumped 16-7 to win the state meet his junior year, 17-0 to win the state meet his senior year and that was only the half of it.

At the Putnam City meet his senior year, he vaulted 17-103⁄4, still the Oklahoma high school record. Only, because it didn’t happen in Oklahoma, that mark doesn’t account for Whitt’s best prep leap, when he won the 2009 Texas Relays clearing 18-014, becoming only the sixth high school pole vaulter in U.S. history to eclipse the 18-foot mark.

Whitt became a junior national champion in 2009 and competed at the Pan-Am Games at Trinidad and Tobago before moving on to Oral Roberts University, where Oklahoma high school pole-vaulting legend and former world-record holder Joe Dial runs the Golden Eagle track and field program.

At ORU, Whitt has since become a three-time All-American.

Earlier this month, with a vault of 18-612, he was crowned NCAA pole vault champion, yet not even that is his greatest leap.

That came indoors, also earlier this month, when he vaulted 18-914, eclipsing the Olympic “A” standard of 18-9.

What that means is the Olympic Trials deck is stacked in Whitt’s favor.

The U.S. team is taking three pole vaulters to the Summer Games and for Whitt to not be one of them, he will have to be beaten by three competitors all passing the “A” standard.

Whitt begins the Trials today with the “A” standard in his pocket.

Next stop, London?

n n n

Here’s why he’s there.

Ramsey, riding a long and successful run as Timberwolves track and field coach, remembers Whitt less for his accomplishments than for the work ethic that made them possible.

“He’s the most self-motivated individual that I’ve ever been around, and I’ve been around a lot,” Ramsey said. “There could be 16 inches of snow on the ground but he’s going to do something 365 days a year to help him with the pole vault. He may only watch a video, but he’s going to do something to make him better.”

The last few days have been an expression of that ehtic.

Whitt was home, in Norman, all last week. Also, he was getting ready for the Trials.

“I had a decently long run on Monday, I did long pole runs on Tuesday, I jogged on Wednesday,” he said, interviewed on Thursday of last week. “I’m going to do an easy workout today and then jog tomorrow. I’m flying all day Saturday, rest on Sunday and then compete on Monday.”

It may not sound like he’s killing himself for his event because he’s not. It’s all about peaking at the right time, and after winning an NCAA championship under the tutelage of a former world-record holder, Whitt knows all about that.

He said his 6-4 frame was weighing in at about 190 pounds, but that he’d be down to 187 by today. It’s all part of the process. Part of putting it all together.

He won’t need to jump like he’s never jumped before (or even as well as he’s jumped before), and still Whitt has reason to believe he will.

“It’s a big adrenaline rush, especially in Eugene, because that’s track Mecca, USA,” he said. “The entire state and community gets into it. It’s crazy.”

He just has to hit his mark.

“How I’m putting my foot down at the takeoff, make sure I’m running through the box, getting the plant up high and being aggressive once you leave the ground … If I can run off he ground, it’s going to be a good jump for me,” he said. “You know, it all depends on how fast I’m running and how good I feel that day, and that depends on the workouts I’ve done previous to that.”

Which goes back to work ethic.

Whitt knows all that he must do. Even as he enters a life chapter that’s not entirely clear.

The dream, he said, is to make his living as a pole vaulter. That means turning pro, doing most of his work in Europe. And because it’ an Olympic year, the time may be imminent to make that leap.

“If I make the team and somebody throws me a big enough offer,” he said, “you never know.”

On the other hand, he’d also enjoy a run at a second straight NCAA title.

The world is Whitt’s oyster.

Today, Eugene.

Tomorrow, London.

So it would seem.

After that?

He’ll figure it out.

He’s come this far.

Clay Horning 366-3526 cfhorning@normantranscript.com

http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext?nxd_id=551602


Arkansas Native Hopes to Vault His Way to London

By: Aaron Nolan
Updated: June 19, 2012




An award winning Hog is aiming high, hoping for a trip to the Summer Olympic Games.
The pole vault is a sport that sends you soaring to the stars, only to bring you right back down to earth.

Razorback freshman, and Mount Ida Arkansas native, Andrew Irwin said, "Yes, I believe you do have to be a little bit crazy to do it."

At 19 years old, Irwin is quickly becoming one of the best vaulters around. During his first season with the University of Arkansas track and field team, Irwin won two conference titles, and was named the Southeastern Conference Freshman Field Athlete of the Year, and the overall Field Athlete of the Year. But Irwin is hoping for the ultimate honor, a trip to the Olympics in London.

Next week Irwin will compete in Eugene, Oregon at the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials.

He said, "Being able to have the opportunity to try and reach it this early on, I didn't expect it, but now it's here and I've got to go and try to make the best of it."

"I'm just looking at it mostly as an experience thing because I am still young and I've got a few more years at this, but at the same time I'm also looking at, you know, it doesn't come around every year, so you gotta take it while it's there."

So this award winning Hog will put his youth aside to focus on the red, white, and blue.

"It would be a great honor to make the team and go over there, and compete for the USA. So it's definitely something to strive for and it's something that you can live for."

Live Twitter updates of every jump: https://twitter.com/#!/polevaultpower
Live X's and O's will be at Flashresults.com
TV schedule at USATF.org, I think it's just on NBCSN or something like that today. Something most people don't have, and they probably wouldn't show much, if anything, from prelims.
If I break my Twitter again, I will continue the updates HERE.

Well, on the bright side, 4 made the final that have the A standard so at least we can send 3 to the OG.

rainbowgirl28 wrote:Live Twitter updates of every jump: https://twitter.com/#!/polevaultpower

And a good thing too. Since the Flashresults and USATF.org are crashed.

God bless you Becca!

achtungpv wrote:Well, on the bright side, 4 made the final that have the A standard so at least we can send 3 to the OG.

5. IAAF has accepted Jordan Scott and Jack Whitt's marks, so it's them plus Walker, Grande and Miles.

Well that sucked. Congrats to everyone who made a bar!

I don't get it... Was it raining the whole time? Wind issues? Puddles on the runway? Reading the tweets makes it sound like a good controlled jump was a rare thing.

I"m looking for a good review of the men like you did for the women, Becca.

I'll post one a little later today. It was raining the whole time, and raining pretty hard for most of the 5.30 jumps. Virtually no wind.