Women Clearing 4.65m or Better

[roger/over]

I had intended to make this top women's list as 4.60m and above, but there are two reasons 4.65m seems a better cut-off: 4.65m identifies eleven vaulters at the top--the same number as for the men at 6.00m. And there is a natural 5cm gap between these vaulters and the next lot of seven at 4.60m.

Women 4.65m and higher:

4.93 Yelena Isinbayeva (RUS) 2005
4.88 Svetland Feofanova (RUS) 2004
4.83 Stacy Dragila (USA) 2004
4.78 Tatyana Polnova (RUS) 2004
4.77 Annika Becker (GER) 2002
4.77 Anna Rogowska (POL) 2005
4.72 Monika Pyrek (POL) 2004
4.70 Yvonne Buschbaum (GER) 2003
4.67 Kellie Suttle (USA) 2004
4.66 Carolin Hingst (GER) 2004
4.65 Mark Sauer (USA) 2002

Kind of a neat distribution, that: three Russians, three Americans, three Germans, and two Poles.

Although, for the reasons I mentioned, 4.60 turned out not to be the best statistical match for the men's list, I was disappointed to lose its historic connections. It seems to me that Emma George's 4.60 gave the women's vault a credibility in metric-measure countries it had previously lacked; and that it broke the 15-foot barrier, with all its significance back to the day when Warmerdam was the Bubka of his time, had the same effect in imperial-measure countries. (In fact, Emma cleared 15'--4.57m-- almost exactly a year before her 4.60m.)

Just in case anyone else shares my interest in that next group at 4.60m, they are:

4.60 Emma George (AUS) 1999
4.60 Pavla Hamácková (CZE) 2003
4.60 Mel Mueller (USA) 2003
4.60 Yelena Belyakova (RUS) 2003
4.60 Andrea Dutoit (USA) 2004
4.60 Thorey Ellisdóttir (ISL) 2004
4.60 Tracy O'Hara (USA) 2005

As far as I know, Jillian Schwartz is the only addition to this list on the basis of an indoor 4.60, doing that in 2004.

[pvkellie]

SHe did a 460m at the Sky athletics meet in may last summer, in 2004

[Scott Go Pre]

that 4.60m jump is on A Pole Vaulter's Dream.

[pvkellie]

Yah, she also jumped a 460m at Prefontaine also.

[roger/over]

Thanks, Kellie. Mirko had both the Sky Invite 4.60 and the Pre 4.60 on his 2004 outdoor list and the Phoenix mark, on his Top 30. Just hate it, when I blow it that way.