pole vaulting

banjobongo

Does this sport exist in Ireland, Ive never seen it in Ireland on TV, the papers etc, is it too specialiased for ireland?

RoyMcC

Mr Tingle will know better, but there's certainly a few vaulters about with Zoe Brown doing well at senior level right now. Facilities are the stumbling block - it's virtually impossible to do technical work outdoors in an Irish winter.

The inter-varsities at Irishtown last spring was like watching a horror movie with lads hurling themselves into space without any idea of how and where they were going to land :pac:

thirtyfoot

It does exist but in very specialised places and these days most of the vaulters train in Santry. Zoe Brown is the first to come up to international standard but she learned her trade in the north and not in Dublin or somewhere else. The standard is poor and probably our weakest event particularly in the men as Zoe will beat many of her male training partners. In mens terms jumping 5m is a benchmark to being a decent vaulter and very few Irish (2 I think) have done that and not in over a decade or so. Its very specialised and requires a serious specimen of an athlete - strong and fast. Our guys doing it aren't fast enough and the guys and girls who could be great vaulters do other events.

Santry and probably Nenagh are the only places in the south you can vault indoors and as RoyMc says you need indoors. I don't think we have any top end vault coaches either but coaches and athletes are working hard to bring it along.

I can remember going to British league matches years ago and flying into Heathrow and one of the guys had his poles with him. Getting on flights was difficult normally but this day we had no pickup and we had to get the train and tube across London with the bag of 15ft and 16ft poles. It was a friday and rush hour. We had to make 3 or 4 changes so each stop meant me jumping into the carraige as soon as the doors opened, my travelling buddy feeding me the poles while walking on. Depended on the carraige but some fitted the poles while one of two we had to open a window and pop the top of the pole bag out the window of the carriage just to fit in. Considering it was rush hour and packed, the help comutters gave us was hilarious. Guys helping out, making room and nobody really cared and most tried to help. I couldn't imagine the same on a DART or LUAS. The only guys who kicked up were the staff occasionally, with some not letting us use their station meaning a trek to the next available one. Glorious days even if slighly off topic:cool:

helpisontheway

Facilities are the major problem but there are alot of others.
The event is not really promoted at a juvenile level as it only becomes available at u15/u16 level when the best juveniles have probably already decided if they are a sprinter/jumper/thrower etc by then.I was in Glasgow last month and visited the Glasgow athletics club training one night just to watch and they had 12 year olds vaulting!

Transport of poles seems also to be a problem along with the large cost involved in buying poles as you improve and grow.

Coaching is scarce,i started coaching pole vault im my club 2 years ago even though my knowledge was very basic but i had to look outside my county for a coach as there are very few people around who know what they are doing.This isnt helped by the fact that its not catered for very well on coaching courses as far as level 2 anyway.

Fantastic event to watch though when done well!

shels4ever

Tingle wrote: »

It does exist but in very specialised places and these days most of the vaulters train in Santry. Zoe Brown is the first to come up to international standard but she learned her trade in the north and not in Dublin or somewhere else. The standard is poor and probably our weakest event particularly in the men as Zoe will beat many of her male training partners. In mens terms jumping 5m is a benchmark to being a decent vaulter and very few Irish (2 I think) have done that and not in over a decade or so. Its very specialised and requires a serious specimen of an athlete - strong and fast. Our guys doing it aren't fast enough and the guys and girls who could be great vaulters do other events.

Maybe I'm way off but it seems that the stronger vaulting countries also have a strong gymnastic tradition and have facilities in place . Is there much if any correlation between the two?

thirtyfoot

shels4ever wrote: »

Maybe I'm way off but it seems that the stronger vaulting countries also have a strong gymnastic tradition and have facilities in place . Is there much if any correlation between the two?

Zoe Brown was a gymnast so there probably is some correlation although some of the male vaulters are very big and I'd doubt they were gymnasts, maybe upper body strength like a gymnast. I'd say coaching is the problem as we don't have any. No reason why Irish couldn't be good at it, the US have great vaulters and Aussies Steve Hooker is the main man at the moment and he at least looks Irish

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5917626,00.jpg

RoyMcC

Certainly the better young vaulters I've seen training were ex-gymnasts, with well-developed upper body strength.

I was interested to read that Loughborough have a new PV pit with a runway sloping downwards. Therefore Kate Dennison et al can use bigger poles and go at higher heights off a shorter run, meaning more vaults per session and more quality 'air time.'

Rineanna

It's certainly an event in its infancy, but beginning to pick up speed here. UL athletics club are being pro-active in its development; just a few weeks back they sent an e-mail around campus specifically recruiting beginners for the pole vault. I think there's a coach driving the initiative there. Unfortunately, I'm not on campus this semester, but maybe next!

helpisontheway

Rineanna wrote: »

It's certainly an event in its infancy, but beginning to pick up speed here. UL athletics club are being pro-active in its development; just a few weeks back they sent an e-mail around campus specifically recruiting beginners for the pole vault. I think there's a coach driving the initiative there. Unfortunately, I'm not on campus this semester, but maybe next!

Ya a few UL athletes have got involved in a bit of coaching around Munster most who have an interest in pole vault.Juliet Claffey coaches at the munster squads and is very good.After that both Philip Kearney and Kevin Grant do a bit for other events but are also enthuastic about pole vault.Id imagine one or all are behind the drive in UL.

Dr Watson

The place to be for the pole-vault is J'Town, and the nearby Antrim Forum.

Jim Alexander (Zoe's coach) coaches there when in the country, also there is a good group of 4.30m plus decathletes in North Down

There have been a few 5.20m vaulters in the North, Mike Bull and Neil Young (5m+ as a Junior)

thirtyfoot

Dr Watson wrote: »

Zoe

Doc, I notice she is unattached (in the club sense). Do you know who she is leaving BAAC for?

Dr Watson

I have heard now she is Dublin based she is transferring to Clonliffe.

thirtyfoot

Dr Watson wrote: »

I have heard now she is Dublin based she is transferring to Clonliffe.

I've seen her in Santry from time to time but I didn't hear she was transferring to Clonliffe. Strange transfer but I suppose she can train with the Clonliffe boys as there are 4 or 5 of them ranging from 4.20-4.90 so good training group for her.

Dr Watson

As I said it was only what I heard.

You raise the question of it being a strange choice, but does it matter what club you compete for as long as you are registered, especially with so many coaches with groups from several clubs?

thirtyfoot

Dr Watson wrote: »

You raise the question of it being a strange choice, but does it matter what club you compete for as long as you are registered, especially with so many coaches with groups from several clubs?

Well her coach is still in the North, Clonliffe women don't compete in Premier League so the only advantage would be the guys to train with which is a multi-club group anyway with 3 or 4 different clubs pooling together. Strange is probably the wrong word, surprised maybe is a better word, but you are right, clubs don't matter.

I've had a quick count and so far this season our motley group has included athletes from 7 different clubs!!