Ever been disqualified for being 1lb. over your pole weight?

[lil_vaulter08]

I was recently disqualified from a competition after I had already won it, because the school I beat contested my weight. I was the only athlete that they weighed however, is that legal?

[Texasvaulter07]

yes but they really should have weighed you before yall started

[polevaulter08nw]

are did you still make it to states?

[polevaultdad]

Saw a girl get her poles taken from her before a meet...she had to borrow poles she had never jumped onto compete. That sounds more dangerous than letting her jump on the pole she had. Weighed 152 and was jumping on a 150 pole.

At the JO's, they weigh in, check the poles and confiscate them until the event. That way poles can be subbed.

[Maverick986]

last year at a meet i weighed myself in the morning as was like 159. at the meet i was weighed in and the digital scale went to 160 and then quicly flases to 161 and back a couple times. the official had me geto ff and had me get on again. it said 160 and then flicked to 161 for a second just b4 i got off the scale. he ruled me to be over the limit on my 160 pole and made my jump on a 165 that i had never seen before, not to mention my school didn't have a butt plug in it since it hadn't been used in so long. this was after i warmed up too. needless to say i had a pretty bad day vaulting.

[polevaultdad]

Yeah - like three runs down the runway and give the pole back to whom ever you borrowed it from.

[polevaulter08nw]

i understand the issue with poles and weights, but if you are really that close to your pole cand your are because you ant your poleto be long, then you should go to a shorter heavier pole anyway! polevaulting isn't about seeing who cann ride the longest pole and muscle the top,(not saying anyone here does.) but most of the time when a vaulter is that close to a their pole weight they need to go back to the funamentals, (plant, knee drive, swing, but mostly the take off!) my freshman year even i was at least 10 pounds under my pole and i had no plant what sdo ever, but i had a swing which got me through. This year i am on poles 35 to 45 over my weight because i worked on my plant for about 2 weeks. i know no one wants to be closer to their poles, but when you are you should consider a shorter stiffer pole and/or working on your fundamentals as it worked for me, just trying to help.

[LancerVaulter07]

ive never even heard of that come up in competetion around here. although ive never gone to anything bigger than a state sectional meet last sophomore outdoor season...

[Toastmaster]

i was super close to not making weight on my 135 pole at districts. when i weighed in, the scale read 135.5, but luckly the ref didn't round up. otherwise i would have had to jump on a 145 13'7" pole that i had never used before

[Vaultref]

Weighing after the event has concluded sounds to me like an incorrect procedure. That being said, meet management can basically do what ever they want. I would hope it would have been all documented prior to the start of the meet.

For the person weighting in at 135.5, that is over the limit and you should have moved up to the next pole. The officials should not have rounded down. There is no plus or minus variance allowed. It's either equal to or under the pole rating.
Recently, I've started seeing poles rated as 136.6 as an example. This changes nothing but should you weight 136.6, you are good to go.

For both jumpers above, what could have been done is this: hit the track and run a couple laps and then get re-weighed. We have done that at several meets. When I say we, I'm talking meet management and meet referee.
After that, if you make the rating on the re-weighing in, you are good to go.

An athlete can easily consume several bottles of water or gatoraide like drinks and pick up additional weight during the event. I'm NOT going to bring out a scale when the event is over.

One thing about using (digital) scales, unless it is resting on a perfectly smooth and hard surface, you will get eratic readings. Not easy to find that kind of surface around the pole vault area.
By meet managment decree, we weighed in all jumpers at an indoor meet this past year and one jumper was weighed four times, at four different locations each with a little different surface and got four different readings. All of course higher than his pole rating. Even on the same surface the readings varied.

A steel plate was located and his readings became consistent. Still over, but consistent. After running the track for a period time, he finally weighed-in under the pole rating. End of story at this point.

[polevaultdad]

The meet I was at was the prestigious Arcadia Meet in So cal. The judges put a bathrrom scale on the grass and then DQ'd about 5 poles.

As to getting on a smaller or heavier pole...easier said than done, depending on experience and pole availability. The bigger the pole the harder to find - if you are using a pole in a series and you are jumping at the top of the series, good luck moving up at a big meet.

[ILUVPOLEVAULT]

I would have to say that most people who are jumping on poles so close to their weight are in for some trouble. I wiegh around 110lbs. and i am jumping on all 130's Sometimes you would rather be safe then sorry. I think that being on poles that give you just enough bend to give you the little extra explosion that you need while the pole uncoils is the right pole. Most of the time...If i was to jump on a 110 pole..i know that i would be bending it fine but the recoil at the top of the vault would probably be slow and past vertical. AS FOR the being weighed after the competition...i do not believe that is something that should be done. If the people who were running the meet had so much of a concern, it should not have mattered if you won, if it was "so" dangerous, they should have called it from the start of the meet!