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rainbowgirl28 wrote:Sutej makes... and the wind blows her pole into the standard. The officials confer and call a make. I reviewed the video and I say good call

In HS there is no rule that allows this. It does allow someone to grab the pole for you if the wind is blowing it over, but the official has no discression to judge whether it would have fallen but for the wind (and then award a successful vault).

Divalent wrote:

rainbowgirl28 wrote:Sutej makes... and the wind blows her pole into the standard. The officials confer and call a make. I reviewed the video and I say good call

In HS there is no rule that allows this. It does allow someone to grab the pole for you if the wind is blowing it over, but the official has no discression to judge whether it would have fallen but for the wind (and then award a successful vault).

Untrue, HS rules give the official the discretion to call if the wind caused the pole to blow into the bar and knock it down.

rainbowgirl28 wrote:

Divalent wrote:

rainbowgirl28 wrote:Sutej makes... and the wind blows her pole into the standard. The officials confer and call a make. I reviewed the video and I say good call

In HS there is no rule that allows this. It does allow someone to grab the pole for you if the wind is blowing it over, but the official has no discression to judge whether it would have fallen but for the wind (and then award a successful vault).

Untrue, HS rules give the official the discretion to call if the wind caused the pole to blow into the bar and knock it down.

Please quote the rule # for me. (or, a casebook situation that works that in somehow. (and then tell Earl Bell he doesn't know the rules.)

BTW, thanks for the updates. I was watching, but your updates made it much easier to keep track of things (I just had to remember not to scroll down too far, as your reports were about a minute ahead of the web feed.

The pole can only be caught when falling toward the runway, no one can stop the pole from falling toward the pit. The official can make the call if wind is a factor.

belmore wrote:The pole can only be caught when falling toward the runway, no one can stop the pole from falling toward the pit. The official can make the call if wind is a factor.

Again, if you can quote me the specific NFHS rule that gives the official the ability to make this call, I would greatly appreciate it.

Vaultref wrote:Main NCAA rules read:
6-6.3.b: Accidental Displacement
ARTICLE 3. b. If the wind is of such intensity that the pole is forced against the crossbar so as to displace it, the vault is successful.

So this clarifies the NCAA rule, and clearly shows that the officials had the authority to call the vault successful in this case.

However, in high school the NFHS rule do not permit this. The only rule that address wind is 7-5-25, and the only thing that rule permits is the appointment of an official pole catcher to catch the pole after it is "properly released" to prevent a wind-blown pole from actually knocking off the bar. No other rule gives the official the right to declare a successful vault if (even despite the efforts of the pole catcher) the wind pushes the pole back into the bar. (And, indeed, if they had that authority, a pole catcher would be superfluous.) IMO they should have that authority (but I'm not the rules )

BTW, do you know what the USATF rule are with respect to this issue?

Regarding HS rules - the rule book can't cover every possible situation, and the official is given discretion when something happens that is not covered in the rule book. For example:
What if another athlete ran across the runway when a competitor was running down the runway?
What if a random person (not the competitor) stumbled into the standards, causing the bar to fall?
What if a stray animal jumped up onto the pit as an athlete was jumping?
The rule book and current case book do not specifically address what to do when the wind clearly blows a properly released pole into the crossbar, as they also do not address a wide variety of situations that could conceivably happen. However, it is pretty clear that the official does have discretion to make decisions about things not specifically addressed in the books.

More relevantly, the case book says the following:

Pole Catcher Dislodges Crossbar
- I don't feel like typing it all up, but it basically says that if the pole catcher tries to catch the pole, and inadvertently knocks it into the bar, that it is a make, provided it is obvious to the official that the athlete successfully cleared the bar.

A reasonable person would assume that the pole catcher's failure to catch a properly released pole should likewise not penalize the athlete.

The rule book and case book make it pretty clear that when an athlete legally clears a height, if factors outside of their control cause the bar to come off, it should be counted as a make. It is controversial at times whether or not the pole was pushed back hard enough vs the strength of the wind, but I have never heard anyone at a meet question the official's ability to make that call.


On a more practical note, it's literally not possible for a pole catcher to catch a properly released pole that is blowing into the crossbar, unless they are either standing on the pit while the vaulter jumps, or have incredibly quick hops. Think about it.



Earl Bell is not a high school coach, I would not expect him to be up to date on the minutia of the NFHS rulebook.

Also, I suspect that this has been addressed in older editions of the case book, but is not currently spelled out as clearly as we would like.

Numerous times, I have discussed this very issue with Illinois HS pole vaulting coaches and officials in the know and the consensus has always been that the official must make a judgement call on whether or not the wind played a role in pushing the pole against the crossbar. Bottom line - if an effort is made by the vaulter to release the pole back away from the bar and the wind pushes is back and knocks it down, it's the official's right to call it a make.
If no effort is made and the bar is knocked down by the pole, again it's the official's call to verify either a miss or make.

colbert wrote: ..... Bottom line - if an effort is made by the vaulter to release the pole back away from the bar and the wind pushes is back and knocks it down, it's the official's right to call it a make.

and that's exactly what we should do, assuming the official is in the correct postition to observe and judge the attempt.

colbert wrote: If no effort is made and the bar is knocked down by the pole, again it's the official's call to verify either a miss or make.

and 99% of the time, the correct call would be a miss.

It takes a lot of meet experience before one gets comfortable in making the correct call. I'd say most of the time we get the wind calls correct.

The best solution is to have the vaulters jumping higher then the pole height.

The best solution is to have the vaulters jumping higher then the pole height

Easier said than done. this discriminates against young athletes, especially girls - and decathletes.

Over ten years ago Oz tried to get the IAAF to change the rule and allow officials discretion when the wind blew the pole onto the bar - I understand from our rep that this was blocked by the USA. My argument has always been that to be fair the rule should be that any pole that lands on the pad ahead of the bar should also count as a foul - as used to be the case many years ago.

In our meet yesterday - officiated by someone that appeared to be very sharp on his Canadian rules (certainly sharper than me) - we had a fairly strong tail wind blowing.

There were several cases where the pole knocked into the bar - sometimes knocking it off, and sometimes just sliding sideways and lodging onto the standard on one side or the other. There was a pole-catcher assigned, but the head PV official asked her not to stop poles from hitting the bar.

What seemed to be rather unusual about this meet was that there were so many instances of the pole sliding down the bar to a standard (especially the vaulters in the 2.5-3.5 meter range). There were more cases than usual of the pole hitting the bar, but less cases than usual of the pole dislodging the bar. i.e. The bar was quite "sticky" on the pegs - it did not dislodge easily.

If the bar went down, it was a miss. If it stayed up, it was a make. Simple as that. Altho I don't know the exact (Canadian) rules re this, there did not seem to be any concerns or complaints from anyone.

Re calling it a miss if the pole passes under the bar, I think that would be just as unfair as calling it a make when the pole would clearly have passed under the bar but for the fact that the pole was longer than the bar ... and slid down and lodged onto a standard.

My vote is to NOT catch poles that might hit the bar in a tail wind. Let the poles fall where they may, and if they knock off the bar, then it's a miss. (As per yesterday's meet.)

BTW, a little off-topic, but I question the sanity of human bar-holder-uppers in a heavy tail-wind. PV doesn't have a wind guage for records (does it?), but in light of that, if the wind is so strong that people need to manually hold the bar in place, then I say the wind is too strong ... at least too strong to recognize any records set.

I say this not just becuz the holder-uppers can be considered a rough guage of a maximum wind speed, but also becuz it becomes problematic to determine if they let go of the bar JUST BEFORE or JUST AFTER the vaulter passed over the bar ... especially if he SCRAPED over it (I would venture to question the impartiality of some holder-uppers - some are obviously there to help the vaulter clear the bar, and have a vested interest in the outcome).

In that scenario, how can an official differentiate between the wind blowing the bar off or the vaulter scraping it off?

And how can you tell if the holder-uppers didn't hold the bar in place whilst the vaulter scraped over it hard enough to dislodge it?

So what do you do if the wind is blowing so strong that human holder-uppers are needed? I say any of these attempts are UNOFFICIAL, and should not count towards a record ... or even towards the outcome of the meet. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think that you should have wind delays until the wind dies down ... just as you have rain delays.

Kirk