Russian Style Pole Vaulting..

[altius]

Please note the difference between a free take off and a pre jump.

[Livininthepast]

I was taught this technique by Paul Richards at Rutgers 30 years ago. It is simple. It is physics. You want your upper hand as high as possible at take off. This is not Russian technique, it is CORRECT technique.
What Bubka had that others have not is lack of fear and an attitude that the body can do what others have not. Don't follow.......lead!

[golfdane]

My friend and mentor told me, that russian coaches and athletes went to Poland to learn from polish vaulting. It must have been around 1970 or so....

[altius]

"My friend and mentor told me, that russian coaches and athletes went to Poland to learn from polish vaulting. It must have been around 1970 or so.." You will find support for this idea if you take a look at Slusarski of Poland winning the 1976 Olympic Games -definitely a free take off.

With regard to the ongoing debate on the more general issue of 'an American technique' I can only repeat my mantra of the past twenty years or so that the sooner all vault coaches, including those in the USA, adopt what I have termed the Petrov/Bubka model with athletes at every level from beginner to superstar, the faster those athletes will improve and the safer they will be.

[golfdane]

"My friend and mentor told me, that russian coaches and athletes went to Poland to learn from polish vaulting. It must have been around 1970 or so.."
You will find support for this idea if you take a look at Slusarski of Poland winning the 1976 Olympic Games -definitely a free take off.

The above friend finished 5th (I think). He often talks about his friend who won the olympic gold (Slusarski), that for some time couldn't get a proper inversion (when he was about 19 years old or so), and still jumped very high.

I don't think a single russian made the finals in '72, and only one in '76....

[golfdane]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8sjz7EbM5s

[KirkB]

Golfdane, this web site http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1976/ATH/mens-pole-vault.html and this one http://www.sports-reference.com/olympic ... ski-1.html confirms that
your friend - Wojciech Buciarski - finished 10th in 1972 and 5th in 1976.

I remembered that I had jumped with Buiciarski in 1972, but I had not remembered that Slusarski was also there. According to this web site, he made the final, but then NH'd - at age 22.

Looking at the vid of Slusarski that you posted, I noticed a couple things ...

He drops his lead knee, then SWINGS it back up! This is actually much, much better than Nordwig LIFTING his lead knee back up, and actually isn't so much different than Hooker or Lukyanenko. Perhaps Slusarski deserves some credit for being another pioneer of the "drop-the-lead-knee" technique!

Did your friend Wojciech emulate that technique too? I can't remember his technique.

Another thing I noticed on Tad's vid was his stutter step about 3 steps out. It doesn't actually appear to be a gathering in prep for takeoff like many vaulters do on their penultimate. Rather, he appears to be adjusting his step so that he hits his takeoff (just my guess).

And did you notice when he brushed the bar on the way down, that his left hand appears to steady the bar? Is that my imagination, or does he deserve some credit there too - well before David Volz "popularized" that technique!?

Regarding this ...

He often talks about his friend who won the olympic gold (Slusarski), that for some time couldn't get a proper inversion (when he was about 19 years old or so), and still jumped very high.

I wonder if that was because he had not yet learned to SWING after dropping his lead knee? If he didn't have the gut muscles to mucle-up (a la Nordwig), and he didn't swing, he'd be stuck - unable to fully invert. And if he was stutter-stepping the last couple strides, that would only exacerbate the problem - by slowing him down.

You can see from my link here that there were actually 2 Russian vaulters in Montreal - in 1976 (but none in 72).

I'm actually quite surprised that there weren't any Russians in Munich, because I vaulted against a couple good ones in Berkeley in 1971. They were Yuri Isakov and Gennadiy Gusyev. Yuri had the 3rd best jump in 1971 with 5.36, and the 16th best in 72 with 5.30.

Kirk