Olympic Women's Finals - Isi 5.05 WR, Stuczynski 4.80

[auggie]

Rick Suhr - your comments and attitude toward Jenn on international tv rank you as the ultimate egotist of all time(regardless of your event knowledge) .
You were speaking to a young woman at the biggest forum of her young life
You should beg NBC for the opportunity to publicly apology. Do not attempt to explain your remarks. Simply apologize.

Jenn - There are better coaches available. You can take your pick I'm sure.
You are a CHAMPION. Congrats on the SILVER.

[ACvault]

I definitely think Suhr's attitude was completely uncalled for. I can understand some disappointment over Jenn not clearing a PR, but she was on the world's biggest stage with a limited number of international experience and success.

I am extremely proud of what Jenn has accomplished by bringing back the women's vault in the U.S. to the level it should be. Plus, this is an amazing accomplishment considering the overall poor performance of Team U.S.A. thus far on the track.

I sincerely hope that Jenn can stay healthy for the next four years and give it another go (she'll be thirty when London rolls around).

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Sports/Beiji ... 1-sun.html



Tue, August 19, 2008
I wouldn't touch it with a 15-foot pole
By STEVE TILLEY

No event as large and complex as the Olympics can run completely smoothly, and there are bound to be times when pieces of equipment go missing. But how do you lose track of a five-metre-long pole?

Ask Brazilian pole-vaulter Fabiana Murer. She held up yesterday's women's pole vault final when she couldn't find the pole she wanted to jump with, claiming it was missing from the equipment she brought with her into Beijing's National Stadium.

"I had to have that one pole," Murer said later. "It wasn't on the track and I don't know where it was." At one point, she blocked the path of a Chinese athlete preparing to make a vault, and said she plans to protest the disappearance of her pole to officials.

I can perhaps see a catcher in softball losing track of her mitt, or a rhythmic gymnast misplacing that baton thingy with the twirly bit on the end. But this is a pole that's longer than most people's cars. It's not the kind of thing that falls to the bottom of your gym bag and gets lost among the sports bras and Lady Speed Stick. This is like a rowing team showing up at the course and realizing they forgot their boat.

Murer ultimately had to make her vaults with a longer pole, and failed her three attempts to clear the 4.65-metre height. The gold medal was won by Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva, who vaulted a world record height of 5.05 metres. And kept track of her pole.

[rainbowgirl28]

Hey guys, the be nice rule still applies when talking about Rick Suhr. And this is not the place for gossip.

[VTechVaulter]

For those of you who have ever met or been around rick... this attitude shouldn't have been unexpected. for those of you who are seeing it for the first time.. this is the way it has been since she started with him. obviously, right or wrong, she feels that he does a good job making her better.

that said it would be nice to see him a little more excited for her, or at least give her a day or 2 to break down her performance, and probably best to do so out of the public spotlight, but thats just rick, love him or hate him.

personally, i think jenn would grow as a vaulter to get somewhere with a coach who builds more confidence. Jenn is a great person and a great vaulter. She deserves some recognition for all she has accomplished. So Congrats Jenn!! way to represent your country very well

finally.. for those of you who have read alans Beginner to Bubka book, a list in the book comes to mind in the section of the Coach as a Teacher. its a list of nevers

Never
Be sarcastic
Publicly embarrass an athlete
Tell an athlete to do something they are not capable of doing
Forget that humor is an important component of teaching
Lose your desire to help young people improve.

[BruceFlorman]

Well, I’m probably not going to win any friends here with my opinion, but I didn’t find coach Suhr’s comments to be particularly out of line, and I’m astonished that people think he should’ve been congratulating Jenn, or that she would’ve believed it to be sincere if he had.

Jenn isn’t some high school girl who’s going to quit the team if the coach is too hard on her. She’s the second-best woman pole vaulter in the world, and she aspires to become the first. Her performance yesterday was certainly no better than “par” for her, more like “sub-par”, and if she were discussing it with knowledgeable folk instead of the clowns on TV, I think she’d be the first to say so. I’m not speaking from first-hand experience, but I really don’t think anyone can become the best in the world at anything by being happy about mediocrity.

Believe me, I’m not disrespecting Jenn, and it’s possible that there were mitigating circumstances that we don’t know about yet. But 12 cents below her PR in the most important competition of her career so far, can’t be considered anything other than a disappointment, even if it still managed to garner a silver medal. So if congratulating her would’ve been obvious BS coming from her coach, should he have done it anyway? If so, why? Just so the TV has a pre-packaged feel-better moment? What kind of weasel does that?

Here’s a quick thought experiment. Suppose Feofanova had PR’d by 7 cents and cleared 4.95 and Jenn had cleared 4.95 also, but lost the silver to Svetlana on countback. Would Jenn be happier with a 3 cm PR in the Olympics and a bronze medal, or a substandard outing and silver? From a financial standpoint, she’s better off with the latter, but I’d like to think she’d really have preferred the former.

Okay, I’ve got my flame-retardant underpants on now, so go ahead and fire away.

[PVCookieman]

For those of you who have ever met or been around rick... this attitude shouldn't have been unexpected. for those of you who are seeing it for the first time.. this is the way it has been since she started with him. obviously, right or wrong, she feels that he does a good job making her better.

that said it would be nice to see him a little more excited for her, or at least give her a day or 2 to break down her performance, and probably best to do so out of the public spotlight, but thats just rick, love him or hate him.

personally, i think jenn would grow as a vaulter to get somewhere with a coach who builds more confidence. Jenn is a great person and a great vaulter. She deserves some recognition for all she has accomplished. So Congrats Jenn!! way to represent your country very well

finally.. for those of you who have read alans Beginner to Bubka book, a list in the book comes to mind in the section of the Coach as a Teacher. its a list of nevers

Never
Be sarcastic
Publicly embarrass an athlete
Tell an athlete to do something they are not capable of doing
Forget that humor is an important component of teaching
Lose your desire to help young people improve.

Well stated! We all know that there are, without a doubt times that the discussion (one-sided as it may have been) we witnessed need to take place. My first thought was exactly as VT states, "give her a day or two to break it down herself." Don't essentially throw it in her face on the world's biggest stage.

Somebody help me here.....what the hell was all the "meat-grinder" about?

[~jj~]

I'm sure they were both disappointed. I wonder if Rick knew he was on the mike?
Chelsea and i were amazed at some of the coaches behavior we saw last summer in Europe!!! A lot of it was down right mean, especially toward the females. It seemed to be kind of a football coaches mentality.
Pole vaulting is supposed to be fun, But sometimes the stress takes the fun way. Its sad.

[zipsDIGSpv]

Somebody help me here.....what the hell was all the "meat-grinder" about?

From what I gathered he was saying that Jenn was putting herself in a spot where she very easily could jump down to the rest of the competition and get caught in the heights between 4.65-4.80 where most of the competition would go out at. He said he wanted her to stay out of that so I don't know if they started lower then they wanted to because warm-ups didn't go well or that she didn't do a good job seperating herself from the rest of the competitors at those heights. Either way I'm just not sure that I would have the heart to bring my athlete to tears after winning a silver medal but I do know that Jenn can jump better then what she performed at the Games, but she was beat by an athlete who was obviously more talented and deserved the Gold. It is a shame that a national audience witnessed this.

[sooch90]

Well, I’m probably not going to win any friends here with my opinion, but I didn’t find coach Suhr’s comments to be particularly out of line, and I’m astonished that people think he should’ve been congratulating Jenn, or that she would’ve believed it to be sincere if he had.

Jenn isn’t some high school girl who’s going to quit the team if the coach is too hard on her. She’s the second-best woman pole vaulter in the world, and she aspires to become the first. Her performance yesterday was certainly no better than “par” for her, more like “sub-par”, and if she were discussing it with knowledgeable folk instead of the clowns on TV, I think she’d be the first to say so. I’m not speaking from first-hand experience, but I really don’t think anyone can become the best in the world at anything by being happy about mediocrity.

Believe me, I’m not disrespecting Jenn, and it’s possible that there were mitigating circumstances that we don’t know about yet. But 12 cents below her PR in the most important competition of her career so far, can’t be considered anything other than a disappointment, even if it still managed to garner a silver medal. So if congratulating her would’ve been obvious BS coming from her coach, should he have done it anyway? If so, why? Just so the TV has a pre-packaged feel-better moment? What kind of weasel does that?

Here’s a quick thought experiment. Suppose Feofanova had PR’d by 7 cents and cleared 4.95 and Jenn had cleared 4.95 also, but lost the silver to Svetlana on countback. Would Jenn be happier with a 3 cm PR in the Olympics and a bronze medal, or a substandard outing and silver? From a financial standpoint, she’s better off with the latter, but I’d like to think she’d really have preferred the former.

Okay, I’ve got my flame-retardant underpants on now, so go ahead and fire away.

Well, I think Jenn Stuczynski put in her absolute 100%, and sometimes in pole vaulting, things just don't go right. If this was the case with Jenn, then Suhr's comment weren't very helpful. What could he possibly chastise her for if she really did her best? It's during those times when things don't go right for vaulters that they can get pretty discouraged because they were sure they would perform well (which she did, but maybe not her pr). That's also when coaches (not that I have any experience with coaching) should maybe give some encouragement.

But it all depends on the context and situation, and I don't think it's right to judge Suhr. Maybe Jenn was up late the night before, or neglected doing complete preparation or something (not likely, but possibly). Maybe Suhr was having a bad day, I don't know.

But I was glad that Jenn mentioned during her interview afterwards that she was really proud of getting silver, so good for her!

[vaultwest]

As a vault coach myself, I was very saddened to watch that interchange, I thought it made our sport, USA coaching and our country look just as bad as when athletes behave badly. I don't know Rick, he probably is a good coach and obviously has done a good job with a very talented athlete in Jenn. But I just can't see any place for his actions in such a public way and for me that would also extend to private but that is just me. If that is an appropriate response to a vaulter's performance then all but the winner of every contest should be put down and that just doesn't sound right to me. PR's are great but you really can't count on always getting one at the biggest meet you compete at, actually jumping at or even near your best in that kind of a situation is a great performance. Plus, just think about how few people win an Olympic medal. I am sure Jenn was tough enough on herself for not winning ( a seemingly near impossible feat I might add). She sure didn't need the world to see her get put in her place for messing up Rick's Olympics. We all make mistakes I hope Rick has the class to apologize. For my part congratulations to Jenn for a truly amazing performance on the biggest, toughest stage in our sport.
Vault On

[KirkB]

Here's a link to a good writeup on the issue, by John Paulsen (whoever he is):

http://www.scoresreport.com/2008/08/19/us-pole-vaulting-coach-rick-suhr-is-kind-of-a-dick/

Here's Paulsen's quote of Rick Suhr:

It’s the same old same old, you’re losing takeoff at the big heights. (shrug) Whaddaya gonna do? (shrug, looks away) Gotta learn to keep takeoff. You got caught at that meat grinder. I did not - and I told 10 people - I didn’t wanna be caught in a meat grinder between 65 and 80. You had to, though. You weren’t on, your warmup didn’t go well. You were at 55. You got caught up in that meat grinder. Whaddaya gonna do? (shrugs, looks away) Whaddaya gonna do? (shrugs, looks away) Didn’t have the legs. Her legs are fresh. Hey, it’s a silver medal. Not bad for someone that’s been pole vaulting for four years. (looks down at his blackberry)

Those are the words I heard too. I was very surprised and apalled at Rick Suhr's treatment of Jenn immediately after she won the Silver.

My first reaction while listening to him talk (TALK DOWN) to Jenn IN A VERY DEROGATORY TONE was "Holy cow, is this guy for real? He's talking down to his star athlete like she's dirt. Is this all about HIM?"

The words were similar to the above. But it's not the words, as much as the derogatory tone that surprised me. And the lack of eye contact. And the lack of a friendly smile on his face. I know that Suhr was a star vaulter and wrestler in high school. Maybe you talk to your WRESTLER that way if you're trying to fire HIM up BEFORE a big match. But you certainly don't talk to your POLE VAULTER that way AFTER she's just won the SILVER!!!

What was the point? Was it to fire her up for 2012? Or was it to vent HIS personal disappointment that HE had to settle for Silver? Was he playing to the camera? The competition was OVER! Did he really have to ADD to Jenn's disappointment in herself? Would she not remember her "failure" 4 years from now WITHOUT this tirade? Of course she would! Jenn will set the WR some day. And it won't be BECAUSE OF Suhr's tirade - it will be IN SPITE OF it.

When he said the last sentence, I almost didn't notice it as a compliment - because he said it in such a negative mono-tone. I guess he really meant to close off the conversation with a positive, but he didn't even smile when he said it.

I disagree with the posters that defend Suhr's actions.

The camera was right there, almost in his face. The cameraman must have been standing right in the middle of the track. But even if he didn't see the camera, there was a dozen people within earshot. If Suhr thought that Jenn deserved a tongue-lashing (for her own good), then that was not the time nor the place. As others have said, that was the time to "savour the moment - rejoice in the glory of a Silver Medal!".

The only conclusion that I can draw from that episode is that Suhr used the situation to try to pump up his own ego. After all, if Jenn had only done everything that he told her to do, she would have won the Gold Medal. That seemed to be his inference, anyway.

I wouldn't want my daughter to be coached by anyone like him - even if he could help her win an Olympic Silver ... or Gold!

While I was writing this, vaultwest posted his reply, and I agree with him. Many of us are all saying the same thing - just in different words.

Kirk