USATF Junior Olympics expands qualifying

[rainbowgirl28]

Top 5 to nationals from regionals instead of top 3 beginning this summer.

[rainbowgirl28]

Adopted at the Annual Meeting was this change to the wording regarding opening height (the stuff in between double parentheses is what was deleted, I can't figure out how to do the strikethrough thing)

Item 96 – Submitted by Glenn Fortune, Rules Committee on behalf of Marc Cizek Amend Rule 302.5(o) as follows:
In the National Youth Athletics Championship and the National Junior Olympics Championship the starting heights in the High Jump and Pole Vault shall be 10cm and 30 cm, respectively, below the ((prescribed standard))Youth Outdoor Performance Standard established by the Youth Athletics Committee at the USATF Annual Meeting. ((In the National Junior Olympic Championship, the starting heights shall be two increments below the national standard as determined by the Youth Athletics Committee.)) Increment increases in both Championships shall be 5
cm in the High Jump and 15 cm in the Pole Vault.
Reason: To take away the confusion of a different qualifying standard for Junior Olympics. The standard for the JO‟S is quite a bit higher and a lot of vaulters are mistaken by the verbiage the way it is now written and don‟t enter thinking there is a higher standard.

[learning to fly]

5 from each region instead of 3? What's the reasoning behind this rule change?

The national meet always has about 25+ vaulters as it is. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice to give more athletes the chance to participate in the national meet, but having a meet that large really disadvantages the better vaulters in the group. I thought the point of a big, national meet like this is to bring together an elite group for some good competition? Making the best 6 or 7 vaulters sit around for even longer before they enter the meet seems counterintuitive. And Junior Olympics is a notoriously hectic meet already... practically doubling the number of vaulters in the finals seems like it would result in even more inefficiency. To really make this work there would need to be a trial meet the day before, with only 8-12 vaulters passing on to the next day.

[rainbowgirl28]

I don't know the exact reasoning, but it really only hurts the pole vaulters and high jumpers. The other events can handle bigger numbers reasonably well.

It definitely won't come close to doubling the size of the meet. A lot of the regions don't even have 5 participants in each division of PV, and there is still the minimum opening height at nationals, so the lower vaulters won't make the trip.

I suggested to some officials I was chatting with that they do a high pit and low pit like they do with the decathletes.

The meet will most likely have to be expanded by a day since they are also adding the sub-bantams. Shouldn't affect the PV though.

[achtungpv]

Why? $$$