Clovis New Format. Opinions???

[VaultNinja]

6. All Athletes will be allowed a maximum of 7 attempts unless the athlete is

eliminated earlier with 3 straight misses.

E. Entry Fee

High School Athletes $25.00

Development Athletes $35.00

Elite Athletes $50.00

So first off Charging broke a** elite athletes $50 to jump when there already paying out of pocket to travel.

Second: the key to a successful street meet in my opinion is showmanship....blasting over some low bars with authority. The crowd doesn't know the difference between 15' and 19' they just like the action. Now everyone is going to start high to try and win. Weasel there way over bars, and you are most definitely going to have more "No Heights".
Also the winning athlete could take their 7th attempt to win then have no chance at breaking the meet record, or their Personal best. And when records go down, crowds remember.
Street Vaults are to promote Track and Field and the Vault especially. So why take away so much promotional value to save 20 or 30 minutes of time.
The ideas going into time saving are going to destroy this event. Shorter pegs, round crossbars, less time between jumps, now less attempts, less misses......
What's next : Limit pole length, no spikes allowed, no glue, no chalk, no fun, no breaking records.
You know what will save time......Find an official with half a brain, and competent people to put the bar back on the pegs, cause they slow us down more than anything.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!!!!

[rainbowgirl28]

So don't go...

Hey are you coming to the meet in Oregon this weekend? My new place is about 2 hours past Hilsboro if you need a place to crash.

[vaultmd]

My understanding is that Fred is back officiating this year.

[Vaultdadof2]

Is there a link to info on the Clovis street vault this year? I cannot find any info on it.
TIA

[VaultNinja]

So don't go...

Hey are you coming to the meet in Oregon this weekend? My new place is about 2 hours past Hilsboro if you need a place to crash.

Can't make it this time, but I hope it goes off well.

[RJJansen]

I jumped in the European Cup first League this year where they piloted the 7 attempts rule. With the idea of making the pole vault competition faster and more exciting to watch. Well it wasn't faster, but it was more confusing. To give you an idea of lenght of the meet in comparison with some other meets i did this year. We were competing with 12 guys in the European Cup, we started warm-ups at 12 o'clock and the meet started at 1.00pm, i won the meet with 5m50 and i had my last attempt at 4.20pm, which means the meet lasted 3 hours and 20 minutes. I can't say that was really fast, i did a meet in the Netherlands with 11 guys, with the normal rules and we were done in 1 hour and 45 minutes. The Jury was working really fast, the had the bar up before you knew it, so i'm with vaultninja on this one, if the jury works fast, the meet will be fast. The new rules aren't making our sport more exciting, just a lot harder, and pole vault is hard enough as it is.

[VaultNinja]

Also something I've noticed in these "time debates" is that every single person that seems to support or come up with these ideas is no longer an athlete. It's so easy to justify something from the sidelines, especially when your not the one who has to deal with it.

[rainbowgirl28]

I don't know why Coach Fraley would want to make the meet run any faster. He controls the entries, so if it's running too long it's his fault for having too big of a field.

I have no idea what his motivation was, but maybe he wanted to make it more interesting for the crowd? Maybe he thought adding another element would make it more of a battle. But I think the crowd will just be confused. They just want to see people jump high.

[VaultNinja]

I'm sure that's what he was thinking. The field is already really small, actually there are only 2 athletes on the mens and womens side who are eligible for prize money, to make it more of a showdown. I don't know. We'll see how it pans out I guess.

[rainbowgirl28]

As far as I know there is no website. I've been running a little website for the meet, and no one sent me any info for the meet this year, and I haven't seen any other sites.

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.usapolevaulting.org/napvachampionships.htm


I noticed a lot more of our elite athletes are competing at the street vault in Kentucky that same weekend.

[VaultNinja]

Doesn't surprise me. That looks like a great event.