Gill labels

[souleman]

OK, So all that has been said, combined with a pm that I recieved about my understanding of the qualifications of a pole,and I'm more confused now than ever. The way it sounds is that I can show up to a meet with a bunch of Gill poles that have been recertified allowing a heavier person to jump on them than when they were originally manufactured and vault ref isn't going to allow them in competition. Even though they really are legal poles. (Now I'm talking High School jumpers only here and his interpretation is the same as mine [short of the grip height issue]). We've got some serious issues and lack of comunication going on here within our own community. First of all we need to be able to figure out an easy way to identify a weight rating for all poles being used. Then we really need to convince manufacturers to standardise the displaying of the weight rating on the poles. As has been mentioned a couple of times already most refs for the pole vault are volunteers that basically have their hands full just keeping the jumping order together, so this thing has to happen with as little brain damage as possible. Likewise, we can't prevent an athlete from doing his best in an event by not allowing a pole that really IS a legal pole. So now the $64,000 question. How do we get this done? What needs to be done to get some consistancy among the manufacturers. Or do we get the PVSCB to take another look at this particular part of the high school rules. We need our high school vaulters to be safe but we also need this to be practical. Later..............Mike

[Darth Vaulter]

Wouldn't it be nice too if we could all just go to someplace on the internet and read the latest version of the high schools rules. It's ridiculous that the "rules" of a sport are copyrighted and cannot be reproduced.

[rainbowgirl28]

I'll tell you my personal opinion on this subject.

If I can't locate the pole etchings or if the pole etchings don't match the pole rating sticker, I'm not allowing the pole for high school usage. End of discussion with me at a meet.

I'm not even sure if a registered/return receipt letter from pole manufacturer "so-and-so" directly received by me would change my mind at this time.


From time to time, I do see what we call an "old pole" and those are poles made prior to the mandatory pole rating sticker. I'm thinking 1995 or earlier, but I'm not sure anymore. When presented with that age pole, I get very leary about accepting it if it does not have the label. As Becca pointed out, we used to mark those poles with (at the time) a just a tape label with the rating in 1" numberals. I don't do that any more. Either it comes with the sticker or it's no good.

It boils down to liability and I'm not willing to take the risk nor let the vaulter do so at my event.

Vaultref, the rule books say nothing about etchings on the poles.

Gill stopped engraving their poles in 2003 and switched to a bar code system. The bar code is usually located in the handle, usually under where the vaulter has taped it up. It is cooked under the fiberglass, it is not something that can be altered. The bar code has the serial # printed on it.

The first poles had a white piece of paper sticker stuck above the weight label that listed the model #, serial #, flex #, length, and weight rating. This sat under that rubber cap, but we all know how easily some of those come off from taking poles in and out. The first design of these white stickers came off the poles almost immediately, meaning if you forgot the flex #, you had no way of knowing it unless you called Gill with the serial # and had them look it up for you.

They quickly switched to a more waterproof type sticker, and these have held up better, but the problem still remained of not knowing the flex # if the sticker came off.

The new labels combine the old weight label with that white sticker. The new yellow label has the model number, serial number, length, and flex # printed on it. You can check the serial number on the weight label with the serial number on the pole if you are questioning it, although that will almost always require the vaulter to untape their pole, so for the love of expensive tape, I hope most officials don't do this unless they have reason to be suspicious.

So like I said, Gill stopped engraving their poles 3.5 years ago. There are a lot of poles out there with no engravings, I hope you haven't been disqualifying them all.

[rainbowgirl28]

From time to time, I do see what we call an "old pole" and those are poles made prior to the mandatory pole rating sticker. I'm thinking 1995 or earlier, but I'm not sure anymore. When presented with that age pole, I get very leary about accepting it if it does not have the label. As Becca pointed out, we used to mark those poles with (at the time) a just a tape label with the rating in 1" numberals. I don't do that any more. Either it comes with the sticker or it's no good.

This is mainly a problem with Spirit, as they did not put weight labels on their poles until 95 or so, whenever that rule went into effect. If you run into any of those poles in a meet, let the coach know there is a process for getting a weight label sticker from UCS. Making up a label 6" down is no longer in the rulebook, and an official has every right to DQ the pole (sadly enough).

There are other, older poles that may not have stickers anymore, like old Catapoles and such. I don't know of any way to get stickers for them short of taking them to their respective manufacturer and getting them recertified.

I can post a list of whose authority the various brands of poles fall under if anyone needs to know. I don't know how many people still have poles from the 80s and 70s that they still use.

[Vaultref]

I will respond to some of your points when I get back in town Becca, but in the mean time...
Is this pole re-rating service just unique to Gill poles or do the other pole maufacturers also do this??

Where can I find the details of just what they are doing? I also would like to know why the etching no longer details the pole rating information at least on Gill poles. I guess I have not seen any "new" poles from Gill, but all other poles that came across my path had the pole rating etched in.

I have never heard doing of this re-rating until reading this forum an my comment would be did "they" let officials organizations know about this and for that matter the NF people? I don't know they didn't, but my state interpretor did not know about it and he's one savy rules person at the highest levels in the country.

[rainbowgirl28]

I will respond to some of your points when I get back in town Becca, but in the mean time...
Is this pole re-rating service just unique to Gill poles or do the other pole maufacturers also do this??

Spirit does not recertify poles because they have not changed anything with their flex chart since they started making poles. They will send weight labels for poles made before 95 or so that do not have any, coaches will have to contact them to find out the details on that.

I've never heard of Altius recertifying poles. I know they have made some changes to their flex charts, but I think you are kind of SOL as far as that goes. They don't use weight stickers anyway, the only way to change theirs would be to have them reengraved, and I have never heard of that happening.

I don't know why any ESSX poles would need to be recertified, but they are also in charge of Catapole, and any old Fibersport poles or Maxima poles. I don't know if anyone has ever asked Bruce to recertify any, I'll let him respond to that.

Where can I find the details of just what they are doing? I also would like to know why the etching no longer details the pole rating information at least on Gill poles. I guess I have not seen any "new" poles from Gill, but all other poles that came across my path had the pole rating etched in.

You can call Gill and talk to Bryan and he can explain whatever you would like to know. The reason why is they are saving $$ on labor costs this way. They feel by matching the serial number in the sticker to the serial number that is embedded in the pole (it is literally baked into the fiberglass) that they have an alternate system that works.

I have never heard doing of this re-rating until reading this forum an my comment would be did "they" let officials organizations know about this and for that matter the NF people? I don't know they didn't, but my state interpretor did not know about it and he's one savy rules person at the highest levels in the country.

They released information about the bar code system when it came out 3 years ago to the NFHS and to the Pennsylvania people

Pretty sure they have been recertifying poles since they came out with Best Flex in 1998 or whatever. It's actually a really small number of poles that get recertified. I can tell you that any of the 12'6 or smaller poles have to be reflexed at the factory because they changed the spans, so the flex numbers don't match up anymore. You probably wouldn't run into too many recertified poles in Georgia.

[gtc]

I'll tell you my personal opinion on this subject.

If I can't locate the pole etchings or if the pole etchings don't match the pole rating sticker, I'm not allowing the pole for high school usage. End of discussion with me at a meet.

I'm not even sure if a registered/return receipt letter from pole manufacturer "so-and-so" directly received by me would change my mind at this time.

Wow, nice!
Glad to see your in it for the kids.
And know more than the pole manufacturers.

[stormvault]

Easy GTC, The job of the official is to enforce the rules by what is written and interpreted by the state association.

As for weight labels, Altius has started to label poles with weight stickers.

[pitchervy]

As for weight labels, Altius has started to label poles with weight stickers.

Haven't seen one of those yet. When did that start?