http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... t1217.html
Vaulters get a lift from gymnastics
Training helps Athens hopefuls
Jeff Metcalfe
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 17, 2003 12:00 AM
The kids are playing in the gym.
That's what it feels like to reigning Olympic champion Stacy Dragila when she and her training partners from Sky Athletics exchange pole vaults for gymnastics.
They run and laugh and do handstands on the floor and giant swings on high bar. They pretend to clear the pole vault bar on trampoline. They work the parallel bars for strength. There's even some "Can you top this?" - these are elite athletes, after all.
The weekly cross-training at Desert Devils National Training Center in Mesa is lighthearted in spirit but serious in intent. If Dragila is to repeat at the 2004 Athens Olympics, she must defeat three Russians - two of them former gymnasts - ahead of her in international track federation rankings.
The balance, strength and speed fundamental to gymnastics hone skills pole vaulters need. Sky Athletics coach Greg Hull gives gymnastics as much weight as running and technique in pole vault training.
"It's difficult to get access to this kind of equipment," Hull said. "It requires you to go to another site, so it becomes inconvenient and a low priority. It's not something we do a very good job of in this country."
Gymnastics training for pole vaulters is still the exception in the United States. Former Arizona State men's gymnastics coach Don Robinson allowed Hull and other pole vaulters into his gym three decades ago.
"I learned an immense amount from him," said Hull, who also trains 2000 Olympic men's pole vault champion Nick Hysong of Phoenix.
Hysong is recovering from a knee injury and not yet in the gym. Former NCAA top-three finishers Adam Keul and Brian DaCunha, Dason Phelps and April Steiner are doing gymnastics with Dragila.
"The Europeans have it totally right," in introducing athletics to children through gymnastics, said Keul, who like Dragila already is qualified for the U.S. Olympic Track Trials in July. "That's why a country like Germany that has half as many people as we do can produce the same amount of pole vaulters as we do and the same amount of good gymnasts. Their kids aren't running around playing football and watching football on TV. They're out there doing gymnastics and running."
Svetlana Feofanova, this year's World Indoor and Outdoor champion, was a gymnast for 11 years and an alternate to the 1996 Russian Olympic team. Yelena Isinbayeva, who broke Dragila's world outdoor record by jumping 15 feet, 9 3/4 inches in July, was a gymnast at the level of most U.S. collegiate gymnasts.
Dragila believes gymnastics allowed the Russians to fast-forward in pole vault, just as gymnastics can accelerate a switch into diving. Two-time U.S. Olympic gymnast Amy Chow, now a medical student at Stanford, recently took up pole vault and quickly zoomed to 12 feet 6 inches.
"It's weird to explain, but when I vault I can slow things down and see things, but if I wasn't doing the work in the gym it might happen too fast," said Dragila, who moved to the Valley in March. "You're using muscles in a different way, and it's just making the whole core that much stronger."
Former gymnasts "might not run as smooth as a sprinter," Dragila said. "You can bend your elbow, you can bend your knee, you don't have to point your toe. The sprint mechanics are what they lack. But they're not afraid to take off, because that's fun for them."
Like thousands of American girls, Dragila, 32, took up gymnastics after Mary Lou Retton's perfect vault into Olympic legend in 1984.
"I was scared to get upside down," she said. "I was so afraid to jump and not know how to land safely. You kind of need to know where you are without freaking out."
Joy Umenhofer-Nielsen, wife of Dragila's former coach, is the national team coordinator for U.S. Trampoline and Tumbling. She helped Dragila learn spatial awareness and strengthen her upper body when Dragila took up pole vaulting in 1994.
By '97, Dragila was the World Indoor champion. Her accomplishments now include 14 national titles, two world outdoor titles and the first Olympic women's pole vault gold medal.
Keul is in his second year with Sky Athletics. His grandfather was a gymnastics coach in Texas.
"I don't even remember when I started, because it's been in my family forever," the 24-year-old said. "When I was a kid, I lived on the trampoline, and that has a lot to do with my pole vault success."
Keul is pushing close to a jump of 19 feet and, like Dragila, he embraces gymnastics for the demons it helps keep at bay.
"I don't have the 17-year-old fearlessness I used to, and that used to be a big part of my vault," he said. "I challenge myself from a mental standpoint to get on the trampoline and say, 'You know what? I'm going to throw a double front off this.'
"It keeps me on the edge, and then when I pole vault I know I can push myself a little further."
