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Recent posts about the strategies of Yelena Isinbayeva and, earlier, Sergey Bubka in nudging their world records up in one-centimeter increments to maximize financial gain sent me to the files to check just exactly when Bubka first cleared 6.00 meters. Next week, that will have been twenty years ago--31 July 1985, in Paris.

The answer to that question led me to a next one: How many vaulters have cleared six meters since then? I found that kind of question can be answered in several places, including Peter Larsson's all-time performances site <http://www.algonet.se/~pela2/index.html>, the IAAF Top Lists "All-time" option <http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=O/ageGroup=N/season=0/gender=M/discipline=PV/legal=A/index.html>, Mirko Jalava's world deep list site <http://www.tilastopaja.net/static_html/wallttop30.htm>, and Peter Matthews' newly-published 2005 edition of the ATFS Athletics Annual.

For my purposes, I found Mirko's 30-deep all-time list got me to the answer for this question quickest, because it is a single list of personal bests. For another question, like "What was the order in which vaulters first reached 6.00m?", you'd need to use one of the other, full-performances, sources.

Anyway, I found that ten other vaulters have reached 6.00m in outdoor meets since Bubka. In order of their best heights, these are:

Sergey Bubka (UKR) 6.14 (1994)
Maxim Tarasov (RUS) 6.05 (1999)
Dmitriy Markov (AUS) 6.05 (2001)
Okkert Brits (RSA) 6.03 (1995)
Jeff Hartwig (USA) 6.03 (2000)
Igor Trandenkov (RUS) 6.01 (1996)
Tim Mack (USA) 6.01 (2004)
Rodion Gataullin (RUS) 6.00 (1989)
Tim Lobinger (GER) 6.00 (1997)
Toby Stevenson (USA) 6.00 (1999)
Paul Burgess (AUS) 6.00 (2005)

When I checked this against Peter Matthews' text, his list reminded me that Jean Galfione of France (in 1999) and Danny Ecker of Germany (in 2001) also reached six meters, but only indoors. Athletics 2005 has this advantage of combining outdoor and indoor all-time lists, but the disadvantage of its publication date omitting Paul Burgess' 2005 clearance.

. . . and yes, I am working on a similar women's list, probably on a threshold of 4.60m. Will try to post that tomorrow.

Make that date of Bubka's first six-meter clearance 13 July 1985, not 31 July 1985. Sorry.

And I had in my notes, but not in the post that 6.00m is 19'8" and that Bubka remains the only vaulter to clear 20' (6.10m).

Do we get to count Ferenc Salbert's 19'9 done at an exhibition under the Eiffel Tower way back when? :-)

If you look at the top all time performances, there has yet to be anyone pole vaulter to clear 6.04 meters. Several have tried it, but no one has cleared it. Strange!

Also, Tim Mack and Igor Trandenkov are the only two on the list that cleared 6.01m without clearing the magic 6.00m mark. Both of them never cleared 6m in a meet.

I also sent the "Vaulters Over Six Meters" material to pole-vault-canada, attracting this response from Quebec vaulter René Gauthier:

Since we are on the 6.00 meter topic. I was told that one vaulter jumped over 6.00 before Bubka did in in 1985, but since it was done during a demo, on an elevated track on the beach, it was not official.... does someone know about this poor fellow that nobody remembers, or I've be fooled ????

Somehow, most of my post on exhibition vaults apparently didn't go through. Let me try again--

That, in turn, provoked this answer from Gérard Dumas. If you don't already know Gérard as THE pole vault statistician (he's written a privately-printed "Who's Who in the Pole Vault" that's the ultimate source for the event), I think his response to Rene's question will make that point clear:

No, You have not been fooled. It was done, but only after Bubka’s 6.00m in 1985.

Hungarian born, Ferenc Salbert who took French citizenship in 1986, vaulted 5.90m legally indoors in 1987, beating Bubka that day (NH). Salbert vaulted 6.02m on April 25, 1987 on a board runway set on the beach of Montpellier. The height was duly checked, but a board runway is a “no noâ€Â

Roger Ruth wrote:Now, let’s see when these jumps were made as far as seasons are concerned.

1985--1
1986--1
1987--1
1988--2
1989--5
1990--1
1991--12
1992--7
1993--11
1994--6
1995--4
1996--4
1997--5
1998--3
1999--9
2000--1
2001--2
2002--2
2003--0
2004--2
2005--1

Which shows that after 2000 or so, when the rules changed ( almost round ends of cross bars and shorter pegs) it is difficult to clear 6.00m, especially when you are not Bubka.

Thank you very much for your interest.
Gérard.

RR: Next question?

ha, the rule change didnt hurt that much. and it happened for the '03 season. so everyone had a mental block that year(dont know why it was a championship year unlike '02) 2 6m clearances in a year is decent with out a bubka, and they were by 2 divverent vaulters and the 3 in the past 2 seasons(so far) are by 3 different dudes, so things seem to be going well.

i will add that the maybe the coolest thing i ever saw was a 6m jump in person(Markov 605! in 2001).

I have Salbert's jump listed as being downhill

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