Grigorieva Aims High Again

[rainbowgirl28]

Jen Stuczynski touched a pole for like a week and jumped around 9'6", then she picked it up a few years later and has had rapid success. I'm not sure exactly when she started jumping last year, but she's jumped 15' this year, and that was probably within a year and a half of her starting seriously.

Lindsey Taylor jumped pretty high within her first year as well.

If you get a stud athlete and a good coach it's possible.

[roger/over]

With all due respect,

" . . . picked it up a few years later . . . "

" . . . not sure exactly when she started jumping . . ."

" . . . probably within a year and a half . . ."

" . . . jumped pretty high within her first year . . ."

are not exactly the statements of evidence of first-year accomplishment I was looking for.

Cheers,
Roger

[rainbowgirl28]

Aww man you're going to make me dig up old articles and get the dates, aren't you

[altius]

RBG You do not need to search further! -unless of course your Doubting Thomas is going to doubt my statements. Tatiana arrived in Adelaide in January 1997 - following then boyfriend Victor Chystiakov who had come with his coach at that time, Alex Parnov, in early October 96. She had been a 400 hurdler -and a good one by OZ standards -so we were all surprised when she took up the vault because it was obvious she could have made international standard in the hurdles.

While I cannot state that she had 'never touched' a pole until January 97 I can assure you that when she did so then, she was a beginner by any standards. Your Doubting Thomas believes no one could improve from beginner to 14' status in a year -well she improved to 4.45 by March of 99 and 4.50 in June of that year at a Grand Prix in Salamanca. What seems to be forgotten in this discussion is that with good facilities and we had them , a favourable culture and we had that , and a great coach - which Alex Parnov certainly is - much more is possible than one would think can be achieved. Dare I say it - if there were more coaches of his ability operating in the USA i supect such a story would not be unusual - nor would the performances of his fourteen year old daughter who has already vaulted 4.15m - although i admit it has taken her more than a year of training to do this!

Of course we should not forget talent! Tatiana is around 5'11" tall and was a good enough runner to be invited to attend national sprint relay training camps. If you saw her doing half levers or ******* on the high bar you would have no doubt of her strength levels. As I have observed elsewhere on PVP, but for a few errors of judgement -and we all make those - Tatiana could have been the first woman over 5.00m - that is of course in my - less than - humble opinion.

I trust my statements will not be doubted because I was on the track working alongside Parnov throughout Tatiana' s development and for a brief period played a part in it.

Incidentally DT migh be interested in the case of Matt Filsell who took up the vault as a fourteen year old boy and jumped 4.82m in his first year. I am sure there are other examples of rapid progress of this kind which will emerge if this post stays alive.

Finally I would observe that US vaulting -- yes yes -i know all about the last two Olympic Games - has enough problems without wasting time and energy on sniping at an athlete who has already achieved far more than most contributors to this forum will ever achieve. If you get the impression I am pd off with this issue you are right! The regular media do a good enough job of chopping down the tall poppies without the amateurs joining in.

[roger/over]

Of course I don't have basis to cast doubt on the previous poster's memories of Grigorieva's rapid early progress. I would have preferred some data on her vaults in those first two years, but even data can be wrong. For example, those first two Grigorieva 4.30m vaults that I had taken from a website as in 1997, were in fact in 1998. The only two performances I've found for her in 1997 were 3.80m and 3.90m, both in Adelaide. How she got from there to at least 29 competitions in 1998, largely in Europe but also including some in New Zealand and America in addition to the Australian ones, must be an interesting story in itself.

I can't guess how he got from discussion of Grigorieva's early vaulting to that bluster about the capabilities of American coaches:

"What seems to be forgotten in this discussion is that with good facilities and we had them , a favourable culture and we had that , and a great coach - which Alex Parnov certainly is - much more is possible than one would think can be achieved. Dare I say it - if there were more coaches of his ability operating in the USA i supect such a story would not be unusual."

and:

"Finally I would observe that US vaulting -- yes yes -i know all about the last two Olympic Games - has enough problems without wasting time and energy on sniping at an athlete who has already achieved far more than most contributors to this forum will ever achieve."

What problems are those? I was under the impression that there must be some competent coaches in the USA, since three of the top five men and two of the top five women on current world lists are from that country. And, of more relation to the context of the remarks: I would think that Dave Nielson's coaching of Dragila has shown merit, considering that Stacy is two inches shorter than Tatiana, has vaulted ten inches higher, and in the 21 times the two have competed against each other, Dragila has placed better in 18. That American coach must have been doing something right.

And yes, we do know about American men winning the last two Olympic Games vault competitions, but what's so special about that? They had won 16 of the previous 24, and weren't entered in two of the other eight.

Cheers

[altius]

I cannot yet find the date of Tatiana's first 14' /4.30m jump but she did jump 4.32 indoors in Adelaide on March 7 1998 and 4.35 outdoors in Brisbane on March 21st. This would be approximately 14 months after beginning to vault. On both occasions she finished second to Emma George. Her ability to get into competitions around the world was probably due to the fact that she travelled on the shirt tails of Markov and Chystiakov - and the credibility of her coach, Alex Parnov. Though 4.35 would certainly have been good enough to get her into some European meets without any assistance.

Re the problems of US vaulting. Four trips to the Reno summit in recent years, a series of three camps at Slippery Rock last month where I saw around 250 young vaulters - few of whom knew what they were supposed to be doing - plus the cries for help every week on this forum suggest to me that there are indeed serious problems. This is not to say there are not some excellent coaches around the country, only that there would seem to be many many athletes without any assistance at all - this will not only lead to many of them not fulfiling their potential but in all likelihood some of them will be injured.

I am not sure where Stacey appeared from in this debate but I am sure she would have been happy to be left out of it!

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Sport/Mottra ... click=true

Sydney Olympics pole vault silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva was sweating on discussions between Australian selectors on Monday over whether they could make any late inclusions for Helsinki before the IAAF deadline closes that day.

Grigorieva cleared the A qualifying mark of 4.45m for the first time this season at Crystal Palace with a leap of 4.47, but Australian qualification closed at the end of May.

Selectors can name an extra athlete in "exceptional circumstances" which normally means they are a near certainty to win a medal.

[rainbowgirl28]

Yay she made the squad!

http://townsvillebulletin.news.com.au/c ... 18,00.html

Tatiana vaults into squad
By John Salvado
25jul05
OLYMPIC pole vault silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva has forced her way into the Australia team for the world track and field championships in Helsinki.

Athletics Australia (AA) selectors decided to make Grigorieva a late addition to the squad after she cleared 4.47 metres at a weekend grand prix meet in London – her best performance in four years.

Injury forced Grigorieva out of the national selection trials in March, but she has returned to form in the nick of time, bettering the A-qualifying standard with her clearance.

She has moved up to No.13 on the 2005 world rankings behind Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, who recently became the first woman to clear the five-metre barrier.

"Tatiana placed sixth in London but cleared the same height as the third place getter," AA high-performance director Max Binnington said.





"The first and second placegetters are clearly the most dominant vaulters currently on the world scene.

"On the world ranking list, there is a glut of athletes on 4.50 metres and 4.60 metres.

"Looking at recent major championships suggests that 4.50 metres would get a final berth, it could easily be 4.40 metres, which gets an athlete into the final.

"Once there anything can happen in the vault."

Grigorieva, the silver medallist in the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, will be the only Australian woman to contest a field event at the world championships next month.

Her inclusion came on the same day AA learnt that leading men's pole vault medal hope Paul Burgess had withdrawn from the world titles with a recurring calf injury.

Burgess is the only vaulter in the world this year to have cleared six metres.