Chiles rides a natural high for Northwest (MO)

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Chiles rides a natural high for Northwest

By Adam Williams
Wednesday, May 2, 2007 10:18 AM CDT

Gripping a vertical pole while upside down at 13 feet in the air is not a position many are familiar with. But for some, like Northwest's Chris Chiles, it's within the realm of just-the-way-I-like-it.

"Naturally you want to slow down and think, 'Hey, I'm not supposed to be here,'" the junior pole vaulter said. "You get completely inverted; that's a little strange. Once you get past that, it's one motion, and it's really neat because you can relax and trust it."

Chiles will be looking for more of that fun Saturday at the Suburban West Conference track and field championships at Lindbergh High. The Suburban West girls' conference meet will be Friday at Parkway South.

The 17-year-old likens the pole vaulting experience to swinging at the playground as a child, feeling the rush of flinging out of the swing at peak height and floating freely to the ground. In pole vaulting, the landing is onto one's back, and onto a soft pad. That is, if the vaulter has good body control.

Technique can make the difference between landing on the pad or missing it to the side and crumpling to the hard ground a few feet lower instead. To keep on target, Chiles practices kicking the crossbar off its mark at 15 or 16 feet high, a level well above where his body needs to arc over the crossbar in competition.
"That's just a way to practice getting yourself upside down," Northwest Coach Ken Campbell said.

The coach says inexperienced vaulters can get into the air only to have trouble maneuvering once they're up there. He says Chiles works hard to hone his form to eliminate such elementary dilemmas.

So far, Chiles's best height in competition is 12-feet-6. He's looking to set a PR - personal record - this week at the conference meet. He's been closing in on 13 feet in practice.

Part of the reason for his success is the extra shimmy he's working into his vault when he gets to the crossbar. The extra, controlled body wiggle helps a pole vaulter get over the bar to land in the center of the mat safely. It also helps him make mid-air course corrections.

"If you don't have an excellent jump, that's a way you can save yourself is by techniquing over the bar," said Chiles, who will is a relative newcomer to the event. "That's what we're working on. It helps my spin a bit."

Chiles hasn't been at the sport all that long. This is his first full year with the track team. And he took time to recover from knee surgery which sidelined him for last fall's football season.

"He's a really hard worker," Campbell said. "He was on crutches at the beginning of the school year."

Now he's running, and not only to approach the pole vault pit. Chiles is on the Lions 4x400-meter relay team, though that isn't what gives him the feeling he most enjoys.

"It's a fun race," Chiles said. "It's tough. It's not my favorite thing."

And pole vaulting is?

"Yeah, pole vaulting definitely is," he said.

Chiles will run in the 4x400 relay at the conference meet this week. But more importantly, at least to him, he will look for that free-floating rush of defying gravity more than a dozen feet - hopefully a baker's dozen - above the terra firma.

The physical aspect is something the athlete works to improve. The ability to face the unreality of being upside down like he's trying to sneak feet first into a second-storey window, that's possibly innate.

"For the most part, it came naturally," Chiles said. "It's really fun."