US Pole Vaulting in 1941

[rainbowgirl28]

Richard Ganslen in Athletic Journal, April, 1941

Each year an estimated 5,000 high, prep school and college boys attempt to master the pole vault event, yet never is there a single season when more than ten or twelve of the top vaulters better fourteen feet. The average winning performance in the majority of small college meets seldom exceeds twelve feet. We cannot say that these boys do not want to jump higher, do not work hard enough, or just lack innate capacity. In the majority of cases the caliber of the coaching in the pole vault is, in general, weak, with the result that many boys arrive at college with certain faulty neuro-muscular patterns which even the most capable of coaches must spend years correcting. Many young vaulters give up vaulting at a stage in their development when success is just around the corner. The majority of world ranking pole vaulters in competition today have spent from ten to twelve years in mastering the event and few are crowned national champions before twenty-three or twenty-four years of age.