Looking for old footage/information on kjell isaksson(FOUND)

[KirkB]

... the El Paso may have been an "pole under the bar miss".. seems i heard that story many years ago.. and a huge jump, 18-9 ish on a 4th practice jump at that same meet?? not sure..

I heard of Isaksson doing that HUGE practice jump too ... but I don't think it was in El Paso. I'm thinking UCLA.

I don't think a pole went under at El Paso either. The 5.54 in LA on Apr 15, 1972 was ratified by the IAAF. so we can conclude that by that date, the rule had changed. El Paso was a month after that. Isaksson recorded a jump of 5.33 on May 20th in El Paso, and then his WR (tie with Seagren) jump of 5.59 three days later. My recollection is that El Paso was a PV mecca back then becuz of its strong tailwinds.

Here's what Gerard Dumas says about that day ...

Code: Select all

Issakson  5.28 o   5.50 o    5.59 xo  5.64 xxx
Seagren   5.28 xo  5.50 xxo  5.59 xo  5.64 xxx

Issakson was the winner...by far, attempts wise. Despite the fact that the marks received the AAU approval for an AAU record the meet was NOT SANCTIONED and the AAU did not send any papers to the IAAF. It remained a US national record and I guess Sweden did the same. But it was NOT a world record.

Statisticians like me have, on occasions, inserted that mark in progression of the record. because it happened and I am sure that the bar was measured properly.

Seagren could have been the record holder [first, for a few minutes] since they cleared the height on their second attempt. However , I do not know who was jumping first. Since it was not a world record no one bothered to find out who established that mark first. They knew who won on countback and I suppose that was enough for them.

Kirk

[stavhoppare]

Kjell's jump on the film was definetly at UCLA. It was definetly a world record! I competed for UCLA and was at that meet. Kjell and Hans Lagerqvist were very good friends. Hasse (Hans) stayed with my wife and I in our appt. in Santa Monica. We trained together a lot at UCLA.
The rule re: the pole under the bar was changed in 1968 during Olympic meetings but not to go into effect until the following year (1969). I know I lost 2 NCAA D-I records because of that rule!!!
Kjell had the best pole speed of any vaulter until Bubka came along. Getting the pole to vertical (bend or no bend) was, is and always will be the absolute most important phase of the vault. Look at what Warmerdam did on bamboo or Ron Morris, JD Martin, Don Bragg did on steel. Pole speed is supreme!

[vaultmd]

Hans was visiting SoCal last month.