Walker goes for gold

[rainbowgirl28]

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Bound for Beijing: Local pole-vaulter goes for the gold at Summer Olympics
By: Elizabeth Griffin, Journal Newspapers08/05/2008
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Brad Walker of Mountlake Terrace is a world champion pole-vaulter bound for Beijing.
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They fly through the air with the greatest of ease. Well, they make it look easy, but imagine racing down a track with a 10-foot pole in your hands, stabbing it into the ground and propelling yourself over a bar that is at least three times your height.

Without a doubt, one of the most exciting events to watch at the Summer Olympics is pole-vaulting. Combining the speed of a sprinter, agility of a gymnast and inherent danger of a warrior catapulting through the air at extreme heights makes it an edge of your seat kind of competition.

This year, the event will be even more exciting for local viewers as Brad Walker, University of Washington graduate, Mountlake Terrace resident and world champion pole-vaulter, goes for the gold.

Walker has medaled four times at world championships - twice earning gold and twice earning silver. Yet even with worldwide success, every athlete knows, as Walker's coach Pat Licari said, "The Olympics are definitely the pinnacle of competition."

"The world championships, which I won in 2007, is the exact same track meet," said Walker in an e-mail interview with The Journal Newspapers from Europe. "Same competitors, same countries involved and usually a packed house full of stands. But even with all those qualities, the Olympics are completely different. This is the one time track and field athletes have the spotlight and get to compete with their country supporting them along the way. It will be more exciting than I can put into words. This is a dream come true and I am going to do my best to bring home the gold for the USA. I will give it everything I've got."

Walker's been giving it everything he's got for some time now. In high school, he led his track and field team to consecutive championships in 1998 and 1999 when, as regional and district pole vault champion, he caught the eye of University of Washington coach Pat Licari.

"Brad wasn't the best in the country," said Licari. "But he was good."

Maybe he didn't start out as the best, but during his college years Walker increased the height of his vaults by three feet, making him not only the best in the country, but a world class vaulter.

"Nineteen feet is a cut off level for being an elite vaulter," said Licari. "At that point he was already at an international level. This benchmark puts you into another category and Brad did that several times in college."

In 2004 Walker finished sixth in the Olympic trials and came very close to making the U.S. Olympic team, according to Licari, who has continued to coach him since his graduation in 2003. The fact that Walker did not make the team in 2004 shows the variability of every competition, said Licari, who added, "The competition you face at the trials for the U.S. team can be harder than the actual Olympics."

Since then, however, Walker has vaulted 19 feet, 9 and 3/4 inches, a height that gives him the current standing of number one pole-vaulter in the world.

Just how hard does he work to compete at this level? Keeping his body trained is a full-time job. Walker describes his typical day: "I never set an alarm. I sleep until my body says get up. Then I normally cook a nice breakfast and wake up with some green tea. I have a relaxing morning and get ready to head in for the day. I start practice with about a 45 minute warm up, have some sprint sessions, followed by some explosive throwing or jumping activity. I usually eat after that and get ready for a weights session. After weights I have a cool down and [physical] therapy may be plugged in at any point in the practice. Afterwards, I head home and cook a nice dinner, relax and get ready for the next day."

Walker is on the road from late January to early March for the indoor competition season and from early June through August or September during the outdoor season. According to Licari, he spends four or five hours a day, six days a week, in training during the rest of the year.

Recently Walker has been competing in a series of meets across Europe. He jumped 19 feet, 5 inches in Germany and Greece, earning first place in both meets. Two weeks out from the Olympics, he will begin focusing on the games exclusively, according to Licari. In Beijing he will have two competitions - the qualifying round where competing pole-vaulters will be broken into two teams and will vault at the same time against each other. This narrows the field from approximately 40 competitors to 15. Then, two days later, those 15 will vault in the final competition.

Licari will be there to coach his first Olympic athlete at the games in Beijing.

"You get an athlete now and then that has the ability to go on and train beyond the college level. I've trained several of them, but Brad has had the most success," he said. "Brad is extremely motivated and focused - more than any other athlete I've worked with. He is a great competitor with good physical tools and technique. More than anything, he is extremely mentally tough, the best competitor I've ever seen. The bigger the meet the more focused he becomes."

Walker, whose goal in life is to "try as hard as humanly possible at whatever I do," said he will know early on in the games whether he's vaulting well or not. "Generally, you can feel instantly whether or not your takeoff will allow for a successful jump," he said. "When you hit it right, the best way for me to describe it is smooth. A perfect jump is basically a very smooth transition of energy. You transition all of your horizontal energy into the pole and if you do it right, you smoothly begin the swing up to the top. Do it wrong and you can still make bars, but your body will let you know you screwed up."

Aside from the pole-vaulting competition, Walker is excited to "take it all in" at the games. "The Olympic motto is basically 'It's not how you place, it is the journey to the games,'" he said. "Each and every athlete has a personal story that would most likely amaze the viewers. We give up more than people would know for this opportunity. My goal is to get the gold medal, but also to take everything in along the way and enjoy the most amazing athletic experience the world has to offer. I consider myself lucky already."

The Beijing Olympics will take place Aug. 8 through 24. The men's pole-vaulting qualifying round will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 20 with the finals two days later on Friday, Aug. 22. For more information visit the official Olympic Web site at http://en.beijing2008.cn.

[patchdoggydogg]

Nice photos of Brad!



Nice article, though I think it would be hard for him to jump 19+ feet with a "10-foot pole"...