Pole Vault Manifesto

[Pogo Stick]

... who is Gatalin? Oddly I've just never heard that name before.

Rodion Gataullin (sometimes spelt with a single "l") ... and sometimes without a "u" ...

Russian: Родион Гатауллин
Letter by letter: Rodion Gataullin

[VTechVaulter]

"who has had the talent (speed, size, strength) since gatalin and bubka to jump the record?"

Victor Chystiakov without a doubt. Unfortunately Victor did not have the patience to master the model.

amen.. i actually have one of victors poles back at Virginia Tech. 5.25 9.6.. Took me a few tries to even do a pole run with that monster. Victor is also about 6'7 or 6'8 i believe and crazy fast! but yeah technically lacking

[LHSVaulterJJR]

i dunno i heard allot of people talking about lawrence johnson as a prospect to jump 20 ft or more ... but again you never know ... sad that he stopped competetively vaulting to become a decathlete

[dj]

good morning

Lawrence actually stopped the decathlon to be a vaulter. He was recruited to Tennessee as a decathlete with a 17-6 vault... when his vault “took off” he continued the decathlon for a short period of time, not only for his team and potential championships but as a foundation of training and preparing for the vault.

dj

[dj]

PS

Victor Chystiakov... how old is he, is he still jumping, who coaches him and where does he train??

dj

[VTechVaulter]

He is 33. i dont know who coaches him now but hes listed as a russian athlete again which i guess means he left australia.

pb in 2008. 5.60

[rainbowgirl28]

I didn't even know he was still jumping. He was Russian and moved to Australia. After he and Tatiana split up, he went back to Russia. There are some articles about him on here, but nothing terribly recent.

[Barto]

He did place 5th in the 2000 Olympics

Victor's 2008 season
NHi NC Moskva 8 Feb
5.40 3 MAI-Galan Malmö 3 Jun
5.60 SB (48) 2 Nebiolo Torino 6 Jun
5.45 6 Moscow Open Moskva 10 Jun
5.50 3 Stars Kyiv 21 Jun
5.50 4 Folksam Sollentuna 8 Jul
5.41 1 Folksam Karlstad 28 Jul

Watch film from the 1994 world Jr champs - WOW
He had the most potential I've ever seen in a young guy - even better than Jacob Davis.

[LHSVaulterJJR]

good morning

Lawrence actually stopped the decathlon to be a vaulter. He was recruited to Tennessee as a decathlete with a 17-6 vault... when his vault “took off” he continued the decathlon for a short period of time, not only for his team and potential championships but as a foundation of training and preparing for the vault.

dj

thanks for clearing that one up dj .... just got a little mixed up lol

[volteur]

so Agapit turned a decathlon recruit into an Olympic Silver medallist and 5.98 vaulter. Nice Work.

[VTechVaulter]

not to take anything away from roman.. who is a fanastic coach from all i've heard...

.. but i believe that in that time it was Jim Bemiller who was lawrence's coach.. i might be wrong though

[Tim McMichael]

Agapit began this thread with the argument for the superiority of the Petrov model which I call "the appeal to Bubka." In its complete form it runs thus:

Bubka was far from the superhuman athlete that everyone supposes. He was fairly average among his peers and there are now many vaulters more physically gifted. The reason for Bubka's success is that the Petrov model is so far superior to all others that he could utterly dominate the sport, even with his average ability . The reason we don't see his world record being broken by multiple athletes today is that no one else has perfected the model like he did.

I can see at least one valid objection to this argument, and the current discussion on this thread concerning who could possibly surpass Bubka is a case in point.

The primary elements of this model became public with Petrov's lectures almost twenty years ago. Since then there has been no shortage of coaches who understand it and atheltes who have tried it. Yet we have seen no one remotely close to Bubka's level.

Given the claims made for the Petrov model, I can see only two possible explanations for the fact that we have no vaulters even remotely close to jumping 6.40. Either there is a flaw in the present understanding and teaching of the model, or there was something special about Bubka that allowed him to implement it better than anyone else. Why is it true that the many athletes using some version of the Petrov model today are only clearing bars that athletes like Billy Olson, Therry Vigneron, and Joe Dial were clearing almost a quarter century ago?