Olympics Men's Finals Articles

[rainbowgirl28]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... DT0063.DTL

U.S. team's class clown `grip-and-rips' his way to a pole vault silver

WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
Friday, August 27, 2004

(08-27) 22:08 PDT ATHENS, Greece (AP) --

He's a California surfer dude, an air guitar virtuoso -- and the U.S. Olympic team's resident class clown.

Toby Stevenson also happens to be very good at what he does: the pole vault. He won a silver medal on Friday night, and for much of the final, it looked like he was cruising for gold with his "grip it and rip it" approach to his specialty -- and to life in general.

Sporting his trademark black crash helmet and soul patch chin decoration, Stevenson cleared 19-4\ but couldn't match teammate Tim Mack's Olympic-record 19-6\ vault for the gold. Giuseppe Gibilisco of Italy, the 2003 world champion, took the bronze at 19-21/2.

Stevenson has gone higher in the past, clearing 19-8\ or 6 meters, pole vaulting's current cosmic leap. What made his Olympic performance memorable was watching him ham it up, as he so often does at meets -- only this time, on track and field's biggest stage.

Not everyone is wild about his zany antics, but he got the crowd at Olympic Stadium going by doing a "shimmy-shake" with his hands after making one of his early heights, and then playing his pole like an electric guitar after his best vault.

It was vintage Stevenson: a man who, perhaps not surprisingly, has his own Web site that greets visitors with "WHAT'S UP, PEOPLE!!!" in block letters.

"The American competes in a helmet, blows kisses to the crowd and pretends to shoot himself in the head when he knocks the bar off," Britain's Press Association noted drily Friday.

"The pole jump is an odd event, and Stevenson is an odd character."

Dude, for sure: Stevenson vaults to the beat of a different drummer, and it's just as likely to be the Rolling Stones' Charley Watts as anyone else.

One of his favorite crowd-pleasing stunts is riding the pole around the mat like a stick horse. Another is throwing the bar in the air and pretending to shoot it down with a rifle.

During the Olympic trials, he spiked his helmet to the mat and did a dance worthy of Anthony Kiedis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman to whom Stevenson bears a slight resemblance. At another elite meet, he beat on his chest like some kind of track Tarzan.

It's just another day at the office for an athlete who's passionate about putting American vaulters back on the map "and making it fun again."

"There are a lot of kids behind us in the USA who are jumping high. We've opened the door for them to realize that it is really fun," said Stevenson, 27, a native of Odessa, Texas, and a Stanford graduate with a degree in economics who now lives and trains in Chula Vista, Calif.

"We're out there having a great time."

To chill out, he surfs the California coastline, although without the helmet, which he began wearing in high school to appease his parents.

Track and field officials occasionally have tried to get Stevenson -- once dubbed "the merry prankster of our sport" by American Track & Field magazine -- to tone down his antics. He says they're merely his offbeat way of dealing with the intense pressure of international competition.

"I'm absolutely ecstatic I won the silver. It is the culmination of the last 15 years of my life paying my dues, taking all the jokes about the helmet. It really legitimizes my life as an athlete," he said Friday.

"I'm disappointed that I lost, but am I disappointed that I got a silver? Hell, no," he said. "We've been here two weeks, saying to each other, `Let's get a gold and a silver,' half joking and half serious. And we did it!"

Italy's Gibilisco gets what Stevenson is all about. Asked what talents a successful pole vaulter needs, topping Gibilisco's list was "to be a little crazy."

"You really have to be mentally strong," he said. "You have to be a little strange, too."

[vaultfan]

PV photos from Track and Field News:

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