Stephanie Simpkins Trains for Olympics in Boone

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.highcountrypress.com/weekly/ ... trains.htm


Pole Vaulter Trains for Olympics in Boone
Story by Sara Mannheimer
USATF Club National Champion Stephanie Simpkins in mid-vault. She hopes to qualify for the 2012 Olympic team.

Pole vaulter Stephanie Simpkins is training for the Olympics and other national and world competitions in Boone and is coached by Daniel Isaacs.
While accompanying her older brother to gymnastics practice, Stephanie Simpkins toddled her first steps on a floor exercise mat. Decades later, she is in Boone training to compete in the pole vault at the Olympics.

Following her auspicious first steps, 26-year-old Simpkins’ life has continued to be a sporting one. Growing up in an athletic family in Pinehurst, she competed in gymnastics from age 4 to 18 and ran cross-country in high school. While she was a student at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Simpkins participated in cross-country in the fall and cycling in the spring.

Colorado College, a NCAA Division III school, might not be the obvious training ground for a future Olympian, but its lower division status actually worked to Simpkins’ advantage. It meant that her coaches encouraged risk-taking and allowed athletes flexibility outside of their usual sport. It was in Simpkins’ junior year of college that her running coach, Ted Casteneda, suggested that her speed combined with her gymnast’s strength could make her a natural contender in pole vault.

He was right. By the time she graduated, Simpkins was the school record-holder for indoor and outdoor vault.

Simpkins loved vaulting, but for the first couple of years she just did it for fun.

“It seemed like something I could be good at, but I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to take it seriously,” she said.

A series of events proved her wrong. In 2007, Simpkins moved to Johnson City to pursue a master’s degree in sport science at East Tennessee State University. As a side job, she coached the undergraduate pole vaulters.

In summer 2007, while in Boone for a clinic, Simpkins met Daniel Isaacs, a local high school coach who has led his athletes to state records and state championships. Isaacs convinced Simpkins that her talent for vaulting could take her all the way to the highest athletic competition in the world.

“Of course competing in the Olympics has always been a dream,” Simpkins said. She fondly remembers watching her first Olympics, the Barcelona summer games in 1992. “We had a friend who taped all of it,” she wrote in an email, “so I think I watched every second of it—whitewater rafting, rowing, cycling, diving. I had the music playing in my head for years.”

Isaacs sees a lot of potential in Simpkins. He considers her physical abilities to be only part of the equation.

“It takes well beyond what most people would do to get to this level [of competition],” he said, “and Stephanie has that commitment.”

At 5-foot-3, Simpkins is relatively short for a pole vaulter, but she doesn’t let her height concern her. With cool confidence, Simpkins acknowledges that if a 6-foot-tall vaulter like Jenn Suhr—the highest ranked vaulter in the United States—were to use perfect technique, a smaller vaulter wouldn’t stand a chance.

“But nobody has perfect technique,” Simpkins said. “With my gymnastics background, there is no reason I can’t be jumping as high as Jenn.”

And Simpkins has the skills and the dedication to back up her confident demeanor. This year she won the USA Track and Field Club Nationals. She trains five hours a day, five to six days a week in order to be prepared for several big meets in the coming year.

2011 will be a big year for Simpkins. She will compete in meets across the country in order to qualify for the USA Track and Field Indoor Nationals at the end of February, the Outdoor Nationals in June, and if things go her way, the 2011 World Championships in Korea.

To qualify for this year’s World Championships (which are outdoors), she must both vault the “A” standard height, a criterion that changes from year to year, and she must place in the top three at the Outdoor Nationals.

Competing in these upcoming meets will help Simpkins prepare for the 2012 Olympic trials. “2012 is definitely on our radar,” Isaacs said. “But to be an Olympic athlete, you are always looking way down the road. It’s hard to tell, because we haven’t started the season yet this year, but it’s possible. It’s absolutely possible.”

“Once you get to the trials,” Simpkins adds, “it’s kind of anybody’s game.” During the 2008 trials, one competitor jumped an entire foot above her personal best to make the Olympic team.

In order to travel to meets across the country and the world, Simpkins needs donations and sponsors. For more information or to donate toward Simpkins’ Olympic dream, click to her blog at defyinggravity2016.blogspot.com or her club’s website at www.tailwindpolevault.com.

[VaultLove]

This is unbelievable confidence. Quite ambitious. Best wishes to you. I suppose at 5 ft. 3 it would be a record if she achieves even, 4.65?

[quote="rainbowgirl28"]http://www.highcountrypress.com/weekly/2010/11-25-10/pole-vaulter-trains.htm

At 5-foot-3, Simpkins is relatively short for a pole vaulter, but she doesn’t let her height concern her. With cool confidence, Simpkins acknowledges that if a 6-foot-tall vaulter like Jenn Suhr—the highest ranked vaulter in the United States—were to use perfect technique, a smaller vaulter wouldn’t stand a chance.

“But nobody has perfect technique,” Simpkins said. “With my gymnastics background, there is no reason I can’t be jumping as high as Jenn.”

And Simpkins has the skills and the dedication to back up her confident demeanor. This year she won the USA Track and Field Club Nationals. She trains five hours a day, five to six days a week in order to be prepared for several big meets in the coming year.

2011 will be a big year for Simpkins. She will compete in meets across the country in order to qualify for the USA Track and Field Indoor Nationals at the end of February, the Outdoor Nationals in June, and if things go her way, the 2011 World Championships in Korea.

[rainbowgirl28]

Isn't Feofanova about 5'3?

Anyway, it's the newspapers job to use a lot of hyperbole.

[VaultPurple]

Well technically Feo is 5'3. But in the vault she is more like 5'9+ because she has such a massive free take off / pre jump where she is about 6 inches off the ground when her pole hits the back of the box!

[VaultLove]

Exactly! a very rare individual. That said, Jenn is quite rare also with her late start in the event. Both are exceptionally athletic. If Ms. Simpkins has similar abilities, she will indeed be vaulting high. I love great stories

Well technically Feo is 5'3. But in the vault she is more like 5'9+ because she has such a massive free take off / pre jump where she is about 6 inches off the ground when her pole hits the back of the box!