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Always something of interest to be found in Mirko Jalava's best performances lists <tilastopaja.org>. This time, what caught my attention in the 2011 outdoor lists was maximum and minimum heights and weights of the women at or above his list threshold of 3.70 meters and of the men at or above 5.00 meters.

Actually, what started me on this was wondering whether #1 ranked Jenn Suhr was the tallest vaulter on his list. Checking, I found that Jenn, at 183cm/63kg was not the tallest, but not by much.

Tallest woman: Li Ling, China 184/65 ranked #42 at 4.40 meters (184cm = 6' 1/2")
Shortest woman: Minimi Watanabe, Japan 157/46 ranked #550 at 3.70 meters (157cm = 5' 1 3/4")
average of top-ten-ranked women: 169.4cm = 5' 6 5/8"
(interesting to note that Germany's Martina Strutz, #3 ranking in the world, is only 3 cm taller than Watanabe at 160/53)

Heaviest woman: Heather Hamilton, Canada 178/68 ranked #111 at 4.20 meters (68 kg = 149.6 lbs)
Lightest woman: Zhang Yingning, CHN, 170/42 ranked #248 at 4.00 meters (42kg = 92.4 lbs)
average weight of top-ten-ranked women: 58.5 kg = 128.7 lbs


Tallest man: Jeremy Scott, USA 208/91 ranked #21 at 5.72 meters (208cm = 6' 9 3/4")
Shortest man: Sompong Soombankruay, Thailand 168/64 ranked #534 at 5.00 meters (168cm = xx
average of top-ten- ranked men: 184.5cm = 6' 1/2"

Heaviest man: Trey Hardee, USA 196/95 ranked #409 at 5.06 meters (95 kg = 209 lbs)
Lightest man: Yang Quan, China 172/53 ranked #143 at 5.31 meters (53 kg = 116 lbs)
average weight of top-ten-ranked men: 74.6 kg = 164.1 lbs)

Oh, and I'm sure you'd ask: dimensions of best-ever Yelena Isinbayeva are 170cm/59kg and of best-ever Sergey Bubka 184cm/80kg.

LOVE this stuff Roger!! Thanks and happy holidays and a wonderful New Year. You continue to be the "Master"!! Bubba

Well I guess I'm the only girl that's honest about my weight haha. FYI this was 5 years ago in my first year of university. It hasn't been updated since I actually started training seriously. I'm 5"10 and 143-145lbs, which is probably pretty common among many other female vaulters.

Is this random piece of information really valuable to the pole vault community? Let's focus on how high we are all jumping

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, Heather, but my focus was on how different one’s body dimensions can be and still jump at heights that define the top 500 in the world. I would have thought there might have been a source of some pride in being able to make that list while shown at more than five pounds heavier than the next-heaviest at 65kg = 143 lbs. Just as I would think Sompong Soombankruay would take pride in being the shortest (at 168cm = 5’ 6 1/8”) man in the world to clear 5 meters.

If it hurt, I apologize; but not for my intentions.

If I saw a 5' 10" female vaulter on such an elite list who even weighed 160-170 I would think POWER, not heavy! I'm a 58 year old 5' 10" male who weighs 170 and consider myself a power vaulter. Any lighter I lose power. The first thing I thought after reading Heather's post was to find some video to see how powerful she was/is. Congrats! Roger is right; it's a compliment. Bubba

Thanks Bubba and Roger.

I'm proud of who I am and how I vault, and I am in the best shape of my life right now, so I am very confident about that. I love being a tall/strong vaulter with more power behind my jump. The only issue I had with this post is that I know that a lot of vaulters' height/weight have not been updated in years. So it doesn't really give the best picture. I know quite a few female vaulters that weigh more than me, so I was surprised to see my name here. Also, when I jumped 4.30 and 4.20 I weighed 65kg, not 68. If we are going to compare stats about different vaulters, it would be best to have the most updated information in the year of the performances we are looking at. But for something like weight, its hard to keep that statistic controlled, unless we went around with a scale!

Thank you for the compliment, and I know that everybody's intentions are good! Just thought I would point out the flaw with the information in case people really want to know the range of height and weight for elite vaulters.

Great input Heather and all the best to you. If you don't mind please Facebook Friend me at Bubba Sparks so I can watch your progress. Thank you! Bubba

I think the heaviest man should be updated too, Darren Niedermeyer weighs around 220lbs and has jumped 5.71m. He is the heaviest pole vaulter I have met.