Safety

[science geek]

Two incidents that occurred at the Bellevue Invitational:
One of the boys from shorewood missed to the side of one of the front buns, he was ok and continued jumping, but never reached the safety zone on either of his last two attempts. We tried to get him to lower his grip, but he didn't lower it enough.

I was told by my coaches that one of the girls from Newport (Bellevue) went head first into the box. Does anyone know how this girl is doing?

We need to make sure we are watching out for each other.

[ashcraftpv]

I'm pretty vocal about unsafe vaulting I see. I was borderline rude to a kid from North Mason as the South Kitsap Invite this past saturday. He was capping the pole he was on, planted WAY late, bent the snot out of the pole, got stood up, then started going towards the side of the front buns. He pushed out his bottom arm for some reason and got a full bend out of the pole while standing on the right front bun. The pole then recoiled and shot him off the side of the mats. I told him to drop his grip six inches, but he was holding in the same spot on his next jump and got stood up again. I yelled at him again to drop his grip, which he did a little bit, which allowed him to barely make it into the mats and (thankfully) end his day.

I'm more concerned about kids staying safe than winning any popularity contests.

[master]

I thought there was some mention (although I was not able to find it) in the NFHS rules that allowed a vault official to restrict a vaulter from jumping if the vaulter was considered to be jumping unsafely. Does anyone else think there is something like this, or am I just imagining things?

[science geek]

The only thing that I could read that dealt with "unsafe jumping" is jumping on a training pole or a pole that is lighter than your weight. I know that in Washington we have created a "safe zone" (8x10 area in the middle of the pit) that the kids are supposed to land in. According to what I have been told if the kids land outside this area twice they are supposed to be removed from the competition. However I have never seen this done. I know that I have told people when I am officiating that if they don't follow my suggestions after they miss this area I will take them out of the competition, but I have never had to do this.