Pole Jumping Explained. Everything for You to Know

Pole jumping is an athletic discipline that is a kind of vertical jumps. It is also a technical part of the track-and-field program. In this discipline, athletes should use an athletic pole to jump over a horizontal bar without dropping it. The given discipline has been an Olympic kind of sport since 1896 for men. As for women, they competed for the first time only in 2000. Pole jumping is a common part of multidiscipline competitions.

Apart from long, triple, and high jumping, pole jumping is the fourth main kind of jumping today. Besides, it is the most unconventional technical discipline. It is among a few kinds of sport that require some additional items to reach necessary goals. Pole jumpers must have perfect athletic skills and abilities.

General Rules

Special sights are used to organize pole jumping events. These sights are represented by a running track, a horizontal bar that is placed on two vertical posts, and a special landing mat. Every athlete is given three attempts to overcome a particular height. It is up to referees to determine the next height, but the difference between them should be at least 5 cm. When it comes to initial stages, the bar is lifted 10-15 cm, later it refers to 5 cm only. A distance between the horizontal posts is 4.5 meters. As for the landing mat, its dimensions are 6×6 or 5×5 meters. Actual dimensions depend on a type of competitions. Finally, the running track is at least 40 meters long and 1.22 meters wide.

An attempt fails to be successful in the following cases:

• an athlete performs a jump and makes the bar fall down;
• an athlete lands on a place that is outside the vertical platitude limited by the vertical posts;
• an athlete tried to use his/her hands to prevent the horizontal bar from falling.

Every successful attempt is marked by the white flag that appears in the referee’s hand. If the horizontal bar falls after the referee lifted the flag, it does not matter. When it happens that a pole is broken during performing an attempt, the athlete has the right to perform this attempt once again. Every jump then consists of such elements as approach, plant and take off, swing up, extension, turn, and fly-away.

Tactics

The given sporting discipline pays special attention to a tactical component. Thus, it is the main peculiarity of this sport to omit heights in order to come to the next one with more attempts. To explain, it is a common thing when an athlete fails to overcome a height from the first attempt, and his next decision is to proceed to a greater height. It is done to preserve more attempts for greater heights.

Pole jumping competitions are the longest ones among all the track-and-field disciplines. Sometimes, they can last up to a few hours. It is discussed now to follow the same system as that used in the powerlifting. To explain, every athlete is provided with a limited number of attempts for the whole competition.

History

The pole has rich history because it was used by people long ago to overcome natural hindrances. Primitive pole jumping competitions took place even among the Celts and the Ancient Greeks. It was in the 19th century only, however, when the pole became a sporting item to overcome a vertical bar. The first essential heights that was overcome by an athlete was 2.5 meters, and it happened in 1790 in Germany. Originally, the poles were made of firm woods, such as ash and hickory. Thus, a common strategy was to thrust it into the ground and climb it to overcome a bar. In 1888, the given strategy allowed to overcome a height of 3.55 meters. However, it was prohibited to use this climbing strategy at official competitions in 1889.

In the early 20th century, such poles were superseded by lighter and more elastic poles made of bamboo. There were extremely popular for about 50 years. When an athlete faced a situation of choice of a particular pole, it turned into real art, which involved hundreds of wooden items. In general, those poles often get broken, their characteristic features depended on weather conditions, and they could be used for no more than a couple of years. The main problem was that it was uncomfortable to jump with poles of this kind.

A 4-meter height was firstly overcome in 1912. M. Wright managed to cope with it and marked the beginning of setting world records in pole jumping. Athletes of those times used a technique that was significantly different from what is used nowadays. Athletes took off, bent their body over a horizontal bar with the help of a powerful sweep, and lifted their poles only after they completely crossed the bar. This strategy was enough to overcome a distance of 4.77 meters in 1943.