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I'm suprised this hasn't been discussed on here: Pole damage. How much is too much? I knicked my pole the other day, and I'm freaking out, I just bought it! But it's more superficial, just the lining of the pole between the top and bottom hand holds, and on the hard side of the pole. Is that okay? What would you consider too much damage to a pole to vault on?

powerplant42 wrote: and on the hard side of the pole. Is that okay?

what do you mean by that? if you mean the expansion side, it's more of a concern that the compression side.

The compression side. The side that points down.

Thats not a big deal then if its on the compression side. I've swung up into several poles, and to date the only break I've ever had was the result of someone else's carelessness.

You should DEFINATELY see about finding some sort of storage area where you can keep your poles out of the weather. Im not really an expert on how weather would affect fiberglass, but I'm going to guess that it isnt good.

i cant believe anybody would leave poles outside, like you store your poles outside?

We've got this little pole/bar graveyard next to this big container where we keep our pits. It's so depressing to see like, twenty poles and bars rotting away in the dust... But the four or so poles that are actually halfway safe to use are kept outside all outdoor season long, probably even during indoor season. You should see this, I wish I had a picture of it... The pole that I used last season rattles, some of the poles have cracked tops, dry rotting tips, etc. Our pit is actually half-way decent though, even if we do need to set it up each practice.....

powerplant42 wrote:We've got this little pole/bar graveyard next to this big container where we keep our pits. It's so depressing to see like, twenty poles and bars rotting away in the dust... But the four or so poles that are actually halfway safe to use are kept outside all outdoor season long, probably even during indoor season. You should see this, I wish I had a picture of it... The pole that I used last season rattles, some of the poles have cracked tops, dry rotting tips, etc. Our pit is actually half-way decent though, even if we do need to set it up each practice.....

So why don't you step up and find a place to put the poles inside and put them there yourself? If you can't find a place, talk to your head track coach and tell him how dangerous it is and how expensive it will be when these poles break or get stolen.

yeah, just ask him if you can bring them home, i currently have 4 poles hanging from my ceiling in my room lol

I think I did ask one time, but he gave me a reason, I forget what it was... I'll definitely make it more of an issue next year though. Because I'm not bringing my pole to school each day, and I am NOT leaving $440 outside. I'll talk to my coach about better funding for track in general, since we've got a pretty underfunded program I feel. But pole vaulting definitely requires the most cash, but next year we'll have at least two new vaulters, and we'll have three greatly improved vaulters (including me! ), so I hope that'll help us get some standards that don't have extenders that fall down when someone knocks off the bar, or a bungie that's about to snap...