PoleVaultPower.com

Some 5.40 guys may not get in this year if I am reading this right. Looks like 16 and 16 only.

Qualifying performances for the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships
must be met during the current season in indoor competition (see important dates).
qualifying Criteria. A complete listing of indoor track and field qualifying criteria is on http://www.ncaa.org [go to championships,
Indoor Track & Field (MIW)].
Qualification to the championships is based on the descending-order list for the season and adhering to the qualifying
regulations/criteria published on http://www.ncaa.org. For each men’s individual event contested, including the heptathlon, the top
16 declared student-athletes will be accepted into the competition. For each woman’s individual event contested, including
the pentathlon, the top 16 declared student-athletes will be accepted into the competition. For each relay event contested,
the top 12 declared relay teams will be accepted into the competition. The stated maximums are absolute and will not be
extended as a result of ties.
Ties. Any descending-order list ties, by mark, for the last position to be accepted will be resolved by examining, of those Division I Indoor Track & Field
Pre-Championships Manual 15
National Collegiate Athletic Association
tied, the second-best valid qualifying meet performance submitted during the season and so on until there is no basis for a
mark comparison. For a tie not resolved after all available mark comparisons, acceptance will be awarded to the competitor
who achieved the original tying mark later in the season. For a tie still not resolved, acceptance will be awarded to the
competitor who achieved the second-best valid qualifying meet performance later in the season and so on until there is no
basis for date comparison. As a last resort, the tie for the last qualifying position will be decided by the toss of a coin. After
acceptance, compliance with Rule 4-2-2a., Failure to Participate, is required.
Any descending-order list ties for combined event student-athletes, by points, for the last position to be accepted will be
resolved by examining, of those tied, the student-athlete who, in the greater number of events, has received more points
than the other student-athlete(s). If still tied, the student-athlete(s) who have the highest number of points in a second event
will win the tie. If a tie still remains, a third event will be examined and so forth until there is no basis for point comparison. For
a tie not resolved after all available comparisons, acceptance will be awarded to the competitor who achieved the original
tying points later in the season. If still tied, we will examine the next and so on until there is no basis for date comparison.
As a last resort, the tie for the last qualifying position will be decided by the toss of a coin.
standards. There are no qualifying standards for the championships season.

Yup, you are reading it right.

At least they got rid of automatic qualification marks. In 2009 they were only able to take 14 pole vaulters because they had a rule about the total amount of athletes allowed in the meet so in events where too many people got the auto mark they had to take less athletes in other events.

But in reality none of the 5.40 guys are going to get in. There are still three weeks left in the season for people to set new marks, It will probably end up taking closer to 5.45 to get in.

Should be an exciting NCAA meet.

How can someone get credit for two marks at one meet. I thought the tie breaker was was decieded by posted meets. The girls pole vault tie breaker Marshall and Newman tied at 4.23. Marshall previous marks 4.23-4.10-4.05-4.00-3.82 Newman previous marks 3.88-3.97-3.75-3.77-3.75-3.80. The jumps before marking 4.23 at their meets , which were not posted Marshall 4.12 Newman 4.13. How is this fair? Are every jump you take during the season going to count or only the posted final jump.

the second-best valid qualifying meet performance submitted during the season

This is the great part about how vague the rule book is. Both interpretations can be correct. 4.13 in the same meet is a valid mark in the same way that you can qualify for NCAA in the prelims of a race. However the rule is vague enough to be interpreted as that meet performance be the final performance of that meet.

This is a situation where the two coaches would probably be well off finding someone to call and argue their case.

Here is one situation where there is a difference in the word of the rule and the intent of the rule. The intent of the rule is so that the consistently best athlete makes it to nationals (as seen also by the other tie breaker where the mark achieved later in the season holds more weight if all marks are the same). In this case Marshal obviously jumped higher more consistently and was at her peak later in the season which is what seems to be the 'intent' of the rule. However the 'word' of the rule allows for the other young lady's mark to stand as well as the 4.13 was a legal meet performance.

I have a feeling there will be a lot of new wordings to the rule book after this year...

midnght333 wrote:How can someone get credit for two marks at one meet. I thought the tie breaker was was decieded by posted meets. The girls pole vault tie breaker Marshall and Newman tied at 4.23. Marshall previous marks 4.23-4.10-4.05-4.00-3.82 Newman previous marks 3.88-3.97-3.75-3.77-3.75-3.80. The jumps before marking 4.23 at their meets , which were not posted Marshall 4.12 Newman 4.13. How is this fair? Are every jump you take during the season going to count or only the posted final jump.

I thought the last chance meets were all supposed to use the same progression?

I know the EMU coach fairly well and spent a lot of time on the phone with him trying to figure this thing out...
Every bar you jump counts towards the tiebreaker. There was a LOT of debate going on across the country with the interp. Think of it the same way as a thrower or horizontal jumper. Say a girl jumps 6.00m in the long jump and on the same day jumps 5.99, 5.98, 5.97. Do they throw out those other 3 marks? No, they still register as her second, third, fourth best jumps. Why should the vertical jumps be different?
He was on the other end of this with his HJ girl who lost the tiebreaker due to a mark that wasn't posted for 4 weeks. NCAA Rules say you have 1 day to report the results, and 5 days to make corrections. They chose to ignore this rule and allowed the mark to count. Citing they couldn't allow an administrative error to prevent a student-athlete from competing. However, having knowledge of all achieved marks during the season and at the required time, maybe you don't pass a bar that will give you a tiebreak advantage.
Last chance meets do not have to follow the same progression. You do have to submit your progression the Monday before the last chance meet. I think a couple of years ago there was a gentlemen's agreement amongst PV Coaches to all try to hit the same target mark.
I heard also that at a last chance meet, even if you are the last competitor in, you still have to follow the progression listed. You cannot pick your own mark.
The NCAA has some work to do on clarifying these issues. As with anything that is new, you're going to find problems the first go round. Think back a few years ago when schools had athletes drop out of distance races at Regionals because they had one of the top 5 times in the country and they were banking on an at large bid. Well that took away from the spirit of competition. Then they enforced the honest effort rule and DQ'ed those guys. Next year we the rule you have to finish inside the top 12 to get an at large bid.
System isn't perfect, but, it's what we have.