Women's Finals LIVE Updates

[rainbowgirl28]

Congrats to the ladies today!

13'11" is unusually low for this meet, isnt it?

Not very many people had a good meet today.

[SweetPVJumps]

any particular reason why? winds or something? or just thats the way it happend in the end?

[bvpv07]

There was a slight cross wind, but I really think that that was just the way it happened in the end.

Talk about anticlimatic...Janson wins with an injury and Chelsea gets second with 4.25 on misses.

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/st ... 8626c.html

Indeed, as Carter refined his victory strut for bigger stages to come, a quieter, more personal duel was developing across the track.

There, two fierce young women with similar names were competing in the same pole vault area where Stacy Dragila of Auburn vaulted into history at the 2000 Olympic Track & Field Trials. Later that summer, Dragila became the first woman to win Olympic gold in the pole vault in Sydney, Australia.

Only six years later, one could say that Lacy Janson of Florida State and Chelsea Johnson of UCLA were like Dragila's younger sporting siblings, carrying on her legacy, vaulting where collegiate women had never vaulted before -- 15 feet and higher.

They reminded us how sports are not always exercises in self-absorption. They are also about the young people who watched Saturday's winners in amazement and had an epiphany:

I can do that, they'll say.

Such was the case of Johnson, who didn't start vaulting until she was a high school senior and whose only goal was to get an athletic scholarship to a good school. Does it get any better than UCLA?

As a father of daughters, I had a lump in my throat talking to her, hearing how she had once watched Dragila here and decided to go for it herself.

"She was really influential," Johnson said of Dragila. "She made women's pole vaulting well known, and look at where it is now."

It's a hotly contested international sport, whereas a few short years ago it was nothing at all.

In the college ranks, Janson and Johnson had pushed the bar higher on the vaulting record, one-upping each other on opposite coasts, with Johnson winning the only head-to-head meeting in March at the NCAA indoor championships.

But countless months of training had come down to Saturday, the focus for two young lives.

The dream was for both to culminate their college careers by breaking Johnson's NCAA record of 15-1.

But then Janson tweaked a hamstring and looked vulnerable while Johnson felt great and seemed poised to win again.

Except she didn't, could never get it going. Both had bad days, not even cracking 14 feet. But Janson won, injury and all, while Johnson tried to absorb why she had to have her worst meet when it mattered most.

"I can't define my whole last year by this meet, but it's hard not to right now," she said.

I asked her about the future, the coming Olympics and everything in between -- and the tears came because questions of tomorrow cemented for Johnson that her college career was over in a fashion she had never imagined. In second place.

It was the price of daring to dream, of putting yourself out there. Sometimes you lose, and it really hurts.

The headlines today are all about Xavier Carter, but I'll remember Johnson's grit on the most disappointing day of her life.

Hopefully, somewhere, a young girl saw this meet. And hopefully, she grew inspired to one day soar in the future.

[gpc3]

Brown gets the clap, and comes up but doesn't finish the vault...first attempt miss.

Well, that way a very bad time to get the clap!!

[rainbowgirl28]

Pictures finally up: http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/06diwomenfinal/

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/art ... p?id=37574

Pole vaulter falls short of high hopes, places second
Saturday brings a sad end to Chelsea Johnson's record-breaking, heavily awarded UCLA career

JENNIFER HUANG/daily bruin senior staff

Senior Chelsea Johnson finished second in the pole vault at the NCAAs in Sacramento Saturday. She received All-American honors but fell short of her national title goal.

By David Garcia
DAILY BRUIN REPORTER
dgarcia@media.ucla.edu

SACRAMENTO â€â€

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanlui ... 793231.htm

Bittersweet pole vaulting battle for former Greyhound and winner
UCLA’s Chelsea Johnson of Atascadero takes second but is upset after only clearing sub-par height
Brian Milne
The Tribune
SACRAMENTO â€â€