5-alive. should it be eliminated?

[patybobady]

***Can someone private mesage me and let me know excatly how to run 5-alive. Running meets now as a coach really makes me want to know this well so it can go smoothly and correctly. I never really saw it in college or if I did I do not remember.

[Scott Go Pre]

If I remember right, the official at Reno held jumpers to one minute on the runway. So, you are trying to say that there were 20 jumpers between your first and second jump!!!!! Whatever!!!! The official at Reno ran the five alive by the book ie. whenever someone would clear a height, another vaulter would be moved into the flight of five. What do you think five alive is?????

The guy would keep adding more vaulters in during the same round, instead of waiting until the next round to add them in, that is what I was talking about!

[lonestar]

Instead of private message, let's keep it public so people will know:

Example: You have 11 competitors at a meet, and 10 of them are all starting at opening height. Instead of running straight through the entire order (which could mean 20+ minutes between attempts) you run it 5 alive.

Here are the competitors names and all except Johnson are coming in at 18'0:
Manson
Johnson (Jan, not Lawrence ) - passing to 18'6
Huffman
Dial
Olson
Tarpenning,
Bell
Curran
Starkey
Volz
Tully

The first 5 jump in order. Lets assume they all miss their first attempt.

1st round:
Manson x
Huffman x
Dial x
Olson x
Tarpenning x

Instead of going from Tarpenning to Bell (#6 on the list at this height), it goes back to Manson in the same order, the same 5 jumping. Now, Manson clears on his 2nd( Bell is then added to the bottom of the 5 in rotation to take his place). Then Huffman jumps and misses, Dial clears (Curran is added to the 5 to take his place), Olson misses, and Tarpenning misses, except now, after Tarpenning jumps, instead of going back to Manson, Bell takes his first attempt, then Curran his first.

2nd round (for original 5):
Manson xo (moves on - Bell added)
Huffman xx
Dial xo (moves on - Curran added)
Olson xx
Tarpenning xx


The process repeats itself:

3rd round (for original 5):
Bell x
Curran x
Huffman xxx (Starkey added)
Olson xxo (Volz added)
Tarpenning xxx (Tully added)


Again...
4th round (for original 5 who have all moved on or gone out):
Bell xo (no one left to add)
Curran xx (no one left to add)
Starkey o
Volz x
Tully o


Now only Curran and Volz remain, so there's only 2 alive...

5th round
Curran xxo
Volz xx

and again...

6th round
Volz xxx

Now the next height is 18'6, and Johnson is coming in, so the order is:
Manson
Johnson
Dial
Olson
Bell

And the process repeats itself...

Basically, any time someone makes a bar or misses their 3rd attempt, the next person down the list who hasn't jumped yet becomes active. Make sense?

You have to stay in order on the list, and this can get tricky when people are passing, but it minimizes time between jumps and keeps the 5 active vaulters fresh, so it's better for the athlete.

[lonestar]

The guy would keep adding more vaulters in during the same round, instead of waiting until the next round to add them in, that is what I was talking about!

If someone clears a height or misses 3 times, another vaulter is added to take their place, in that same round. Obviously the vaulter that is added is on a different attempt than the original 5, but there is always 5 people jumping, no matter what number of attempts each of the 5 has taken.

[Skyin' Brian]

[quote=
2nd round (for original 5):
Manson xo (moves on - Bell added)
Huffman xx
Dial xo (moves on - Curran added)
Olson xx
Tarpenning xx


The process repeats itself:

3rd round (for original 5):
Bell x
Curran x
Huffman xxx (Starkey added)
Olson xxo (Volz added)
Tarpenning xxx (Tully added)
[b]

[/quote]
you do a good job explaining 5-alive which can be trickier than it seems at times, but here is a common error where vaulters are put out of order by the official. curran is added into the order after huffman misses, but on the third round the official goes by his sheet and huffman waits for 5 vaults rather than 4 before he takes his next turn. this is because the official looked only at the order on his sheet, and did not keep track of the order of the rotation of five.

[lonestar]

you do a good job explaining 5-alive which can be trickier than it seems at times, but here is a common error where vaulters are put out of order by the official. curran is added into the order after huffman misses, but on the third round the official goes by his sheet and huffman waits for 5 vaults rather than 4 before he takes his next turn. this is because the official looked only at the order on his sheet, and did not keep track of the order of the rotation of five.

Wow, didn't even catch that when I typed it. Thanks for the correction. It definitely can be confusing!

[MightyMouse]

Uhh o Now im lost, I was good up untill the

huffman waits for 5 vaults rather than 4 before he takes his next turn. this is because the official looked only at the order on his sheet, and did not keep track of the order of the rotation of five

Part
Could you try to clarify that a bit, Sometimes I can be a bit slow

[lonestar]

Uhh o Now im lost, I was good up untill the

huffman waits for 5 vaults rather than 4 before he takes his next turn. this is because the official looked only at the order on his sheet, and did not keep track of the order of the rotation of five

Part
Could you try to clarify that a bit, Sometimes I can be a bit slow

Sure, let's go back to the sheet:

2nd round (for original 5):
1 Manson xo (moves on - Bell added)
2 Huffman xx
3 Dial xo (moves on - Curran added)
4 Olson xx
5 Tarpenning xx


The process repeats itself:

3rd round (for original 5):
1 Bell x
2 Curran x
3 Huffman xxx (Starkey added)
4 Olson xxo (Volz added)
5 Tarpenning xxx (Tully added)

Since it's 5 alive, whoever is jumping will always have 4 jumps between attempts. So what Skyin was saying is, the way I did the example, Huffman jumps in the 2nd round and misses, and then I had Dial, Olson, Tarpenning, Bell, and Curran after him, making 5 jumps in between instead of 4. Curran still comes into the order since Dial cleared, but not until after Huffman. So to be correct, it would have to look like this:

[b]2nd round (for original 5):
1 Manson xo (moves on - Bell added)
2 Huffman xx
3 Dial xo (moves on - Curran added)
4 Olson xx
5 Tarpenning xx


The process repeats itself:

3rd round (for original 5):
1 Bell x
2 Huffman xxx (Starkey added)
3 Curran x
4 Olson xxo (Volz added)
5 Tarpenning xxx (Tully added)
[b]

That way each vaulter is always 5th in the rotation after each jump, where before, the way I had it would have made Huffman the 6th jump after his 2nd attempt.

[LancerVaulter07]

this was my first year (sophomore year) that i went
to my biggest meets {conference champ. / county champ /
county seat invitational and state sectional} and the
official ran the 5 alive because at some of the meets there
was like 23+ vaulters and i preffered the method. just
gotta make sure you keep moving after you clear a height.
at one meet though we went from like 21 vaulters to the
next height at like 13 vaulters and he took away the five alive
and that didn't work well...waited FOREVER...i guess it didn't
help being that the place had the WORST standards ever.

[Hambares]

I can run a 5 alive meet, but is there an app for 5 alive? It would make life that much easier!

[botakatobi]

In large fields 5 alive is an advantage to those athletes who miss an attempt. Properly conducted, the athlete who misses does not have to wait long for their next attempt.

The problem, as carefully mentioned in previous posts is few officials know how to run 5 alive.

Why do they not know how to conduct 5 alive? Lack of training. USATF, the certifying body for NCAA and USATF officials provides little training on how to conduct 5 alive properly. High school officials, unless members of USATF probably receive no training.

Individual associations of USATF provide their own training which may or not include 5 alive. My association, one of the busiest in the country in terms of NCAA and USATF sanctioned meets provides practically no training on 5 alive.

Last week, a California State Championship HS pole vault official came up to me at a NCAA meet and asked me how to conduct 5 alive. I quickly showed him, but without practice under the eyes of a skilled official, I'm worried on how well he will conduct the event at the State Championships.

Performing 5 alive properly takes time. USATF and NFHS need to enhance their training programs so that the format is conducted well and athletes benefit from the 5 alive method.

[Vaultref]

After reading every post (again), it seems clear to me that deleting the concept of 5-alive would be detrimental to the vertical jumps.

I'll do everything I can do as an official to make sure the rules makers leave this alone except for one thing.. Make the concept of 5-alive (especially how to end it) consistent across all three rule codes ... NFHS, NCAA and USATF.