Young Girl Vaulters

[vaultfan]

Here's an article written by Roger Ruth that I feel many of you will find quite interesting:

Recently, a friend sent a note about a 13-year-old German vaulter, Natasha Brenner, clearing 3.70m. She asked for the imperial conversion of the metric measure. I was able to tell her that the conversion is 12'1 1/2" and, after a quick check of Mirko Jalava's 2003 world list, that the 3.70m was second to only the 3.90 of Greece's Ekateríni Stefanídou at that age.

Subsequently, Heinrich Hubbeling confirmed the details of Brenner's vault, including a correction on the spelling of her first name (Natascha) and her first place in a youth meet at Homburg on 21 September.

The original message, though, stimulated my curiosity about what heights represent elite performance at younger ages, and how well youthful excellence predicts superior vaulting in the following years.

My approach to answering these questions was to sort Jalava's world lists by the vaulter's age for the eight years he has been publishing this data on his website <http://www.tilastopaja.net>. The world lists, 500-deep or longer for most events, are part of his subscription service. However, if you're interested in the career progression of a particular athlete, that information is available without subscription, on the website home page.

Most readers of this mailing list will know that age-level competitions usually are categorized on the basis of the age of the athlete on the last day of the year when the event is held. Since many of the marks I found for the young vaulters were attained in open events, and since I was interested in physical age, not in competition category, my summary considers actual age on the date of the performance.

For reasons I'll explain below, I eventually limited my summary to vaults of 3.60m or higher. For the benefit of the metrically challenged, the imperial equivalents of the best height I found at each age level,
12 to 16, are as follow:

Age 12 3.60m 11'9 1/2"
Age 13 3.90m 12'9 1/2"
Age 14 4.10m 13'5 1/4"
Age 15 4.05m 13'3 1/4"
Age 16 4.31m 14'1 1/2"

In greater detail, the top ten marks for each age level, where this many were available, were: -

-12-
3.60 Vicky Parnov AUS 24.10.90 5= Gold Coast 12 Apr 2003

-13-
3.90 Annu Mäkelä FIN 20.9.82 1-17 Somero 10 Jul 1996
3.90 Ekateríni Stefanídou GRE 4.2.90 7 Haniá 9 Jun 2003
3.70 Natascha Brenner GER .90 1 Homburg 21 Sep 2003
3.65 Samantha Shepard USA 11.11.83 2-HS Raleigh NC 14 Jun 1997
3.61 Minna Nikkanen FIN 9.4.88 1-13 Turku 29 Jul 2001

-14-
4.10 Lisa Ryshich GER 27.9.88 1-17 Mannheim 21 Jun 2003
4.00 Wu Sha CHN 21.10.87 1 Jinan 17 Aug 2002
3.80 Hannah Olson GBR 29.1.88 1 Ashford 8 Jun 2002
3.76 Vanessa Boslak FRA 11.6.82 1 Saint-Quentin 29 Sep 1996
3.75 Silke Spiegelburg GER 17.3.86 1 Zweibrücken 26 Aug 2000
3.73 Floé Kühnert GER 6.3.84 1-14 Bad Sooden 4 Sep 1998
3.71 Henrietta French FIN 13.3.87 1-15 Mariehamn 22 Jul 2001
3.71 Kim Kühnert GER 9.5.88 1-15 Beckum 25 Aug 2002
3.70 Samantha Shepard USA 11.11.83 4-19 Edwardsville 27 Jun 1998
3.70 Annelie van Wyk RSA 28.5.84 2 Durban 6 Mar 1999

-15-
4.05 Amandine Homo FRA 24.12.80 1 Miramas 29 May 1996
4.01 Annika Becker GER 12.11.81 1 Schelklingen 29 May 1997
4.00 Silke Spiegelburg GER 17.3.86 1-17 Debrecen 14 Jul 2001
4.00 Mariya Pastukhova RUS 19.4.87 1-17 Cheboksary 19 Jun 2003
4.00 Charmaine Lucock AUS 8.4.87 3-17 Sherbrooke 13 Jul 2003
4.00 Kim Kühnert GER 9.5.88 4-17 Sherbrooke 13 Jul 2003
3.90 Vanessa Boslak FRA 11.6.82 5 Villeneuve d'Ascq 29 Jun 1997
3.90 Annu Mäkelä FIN 20.9.82 1-17 Somero 10 Jul 1998
3.90 Wu Sha CHN 21.10.87 5= Nanning 5 Apr 2003
3.89 Kacey Lundgren USA 25.11.86 2-HS Norwalk CA 1 Jun 2002

-16-
4.31 Monika Götz GER 15.6.81 1-17 Troisdorf 9 May 1998
4.20 Katerina Badurov CZE 18.12.82 1 Praha 5 Jun 1999
4.20 Silke Spiegelburg GER 17.3.86 2-19 Mannheim 15 Jun 2002
4.15 Annika Becker GER 12.11.81 3 Riesa 8 Aug 1998
4.15 Floé Kühnert GER 6.3.84 4-22 Jena 19 Aug 2000
4.11 Vanessa Boslak FRA 11.6.82 1 Amiens 9 May 1999
4.10 Aleksandra Kiryashova RUS 21.8.85 3-19 Kazan 25 Jun 2002
4.06 Stacie Manuel USA 6.12.83 1-HS Albertville MN 25 May 2000
4.02 Julie Vigourt FRA 19.10.79 1 Chalon-sur-Saone 12 May 1996
4.00 Emilie Bécot FRA 20.10.80 1 Clermont-Ferrand 4 Jun 1997
4.00 Yvonne Buschbaum GER 14.7.80 1-17 Lüdenscheid 4 Jul 1997
4.00 Anna Wielgus POL 27.10.81 1 Wroclaw 26 Jun 1998
4.00 Yelena Isinbayeva RUS 3.6.82 1-17 Moskva 15 Jul 1998
4.00 Annu Mäkelä FIN 20.9.82 4-17 Bydgoszcz 18 Jul 1999
4.00 Syrine Balti TUN 31.10.83 2 Tunis 3 Jun 2000
4.00 Aleksandra Kiryashova RUS .85 2-17 Debrecen 14 Jul 2001
4.00 Jirina Ptácníková CZE 20.5.86 3 Jablonec 1 Jun 2002

How well, then, does precocious superiority predict future excellence for the female vaulters?

Readers who follow the event closely will have noticed that several vaulters who have dominated vaulting in its short history of wide-spread competition (for example, Emma George of Australia, Stacy Dragila of the United States, and Svetlana Feofanova of Russia) do not appear in the youth lists. I believe that this can be explained by most female vaulters of their "generation" having moved to that event after having already attained success in another event (Dragila: heptathlon), another sport (Feofanova: gymnastics), or another physical endeavor (George: circus acrobatics).

In contrast, it is interesting to look at the remarkable crop of 16-year-old vaulters who topped the 1998 year:

4.31 Monika Götz Germany
4.15 Annika Becker Germany
4.10 Vanessa Boslak France
4.00 Yelena Isinbayeva Russia
4.00 Anna Wielgus Poland

Each of these has subsequently held the national record of her country.

My reading is that superior youth performance in the women's vault predicts mature excellence better today than it has in the past and probably will continue to do so.

The rapid increase in participation and improvement in performance of competitors causes some problems in this sort of statistical summary. The threshold for Mirko's world deep list has increased from 3.30m in 1996 to 3.60m in 2003. The reason for this is that leaving the list minimum at the lower height would result in a far longer world list of female vaulters than for other events, including that of male vaulters; obviously an unfair standard. Mirko's world deep list for male vaulters, with a constant minimum of 5.00m, has remained at about 500 names since 1999. During that time period, the women's list, with a minimum of 3.30m, rose to 648 names in 1999, prompting an increase in the threshold to 3.40m for 2000. But there were 707 women who bettered that height in 2000 and 615 in 2001, so the standard was increased to 3.50 meters for 2002. 615 women vaulted that height or higher in 2002, so the threshold height for their world list was increased to 3.60m for 2003. Thus far, 658 women have met or exceeded that criterion in 2003, so another increase for list eligibility can be forseen in 2004.

If you've stayed with me this far, perhaps you're interested in the rest of the statistical problem. In the chart, I've shown only five vaulters at age 13. I could have added another five who, in fact, made the world list in years when the threshold height was lower than 3.60m. The problem is that doing this would include these athletes, but not others who have cleared the same heights in later years, because their marks were not shown in the annual lists. I know all to well, from my work on Canadian all-time lists, that once the minimum criterion for inclusion is increased, there's no going back: performances below the new threshold are no longer reported. On the other hand, if fairness (being able to include all equivalent accomplishments) is the intent, aren't vaulters who made the world list at 3.30m in 1996 as worthy of recognition as those who made the world list at 3.60m in 2003? Obviously, I've opted for an objectively constant standard.

Thanks for your patience. If you'd like to see the complete summary of women, ages 12-16, who have made Jalava's world list since 1996, I'd be glad to send that information as a Microsoft Word attachment to a personal e-mail address.

Cheers, Roger

[rainbowgirl28]

Hey Roger, can you give us any updates to these lists?