Pole vault coaches damaging athlete performances?

Turbulent Bill

Noticed this while watching the end of the women's pole vault final, and Victor Costello mentioned it too in his roundup of field events. The pole vaulters were incredibly reliant on their coaches in the stands for instructions, and produced pretty poor vaults under pressure. Jennifer Suhr was the perfect example, 4 failures at 4.80m (one apparantly was a misjump, hence the extra attempt) and she didn't look convincing in any of them. She looked miserable and incredibly stressed in the final stages, even for someone about to win gold.

Surely the coaches should shut up and let the athletes get on with it, similarly the athletes should be tuned in to the task in hand and compete independently?

(Hey, hey, 1k posts! Only took 6 years...)

Burgman

You are right, but Holly Bleasdale was the perfect example.

RayCun

It was discussed on this thread...

There was a headwind for the vaulters. The coaches were sideways on, so they could see when the wind was strong or weak. But yeah, it looked like it was distracting them.

Turbulent Bill

RayCun wrote: »

It was discussed on this thread...

There was a headwind for the vaulters. The coaches were sideways on, so they could see when the wind was strong or weak. But yeah, it looked like it was distracting them.

Thanks, didn't see it on the other thread, might be worth a discussion on its own anyway.

I think the jumpers would have been better managing their own jumps, headwind or not. Whatever impact the wind was having seemed less than the that caused by loss of concentration, esp. for Bleasdale as Burgman mentioned. At least Suhr won, even if she seemed miserable doing it.

Pherekydes

Silva equalled her NR. The others were probably hampered by the head wind.

RoyMcC

TB that was my original thought when I commented on Bleasdale's performance on the other thread. However it is apparently accepted practice. And for sure, PV is like no other event in that respect in that an often variable wind above ground level has to be dealt with.

In other field events the athlete is entirely focused on the task in front of them. A slip in concentration almost always ends in a sloppy outcome. It seems to me that the vaulter that makes his/her own decisions once the clock has started is more likely to succeed.

There again, I've not coached PV nor am I likely to. It would be good if a proper PV coach talked us through this.

Turbulent Bill

The obvious thing would be to have the windsock near where the vaulter is starting from so they can see it - the wind conditions will hardly change much between there and the takeoff area. I've no idea whether this positioning is regulated or not (quick Google didn't help), but if it's just a convenience for the athletes then they should be able to see it regardless of the wind direction.

RayCun

The streamers were right beside the jumping area, but the angle was wrong. The wind, and the streamers, were blowing towards the athletes.
You could reposition the streamers (or have another set) right beside the athletes but then they'd have to turn their heads 90 degrees to see it, which would be just as bad.