Hooker and the 10cm that means everything in the world

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/hooker ... 89880.html

Hooker and the 10cm that means everything in the world

February 14, 2009


Just 10 centimetres separates Steve Hooker from the world pole vault record. Jessica Halloran talks to the Olympic gold medallist who is soaring higher and higher.


By Hooker by crook … the Olympic champ has his eye on the great Sergey Bubka's world record.
Photo: AFP
Other related coverage
Athletics Hooker ready to beat Bubka with heavy pole
Athletics Hooker reaches a height only Bubka could clear
Advertisement

"I fly like paper, get high like planes. If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name."

Steve Hooker plans to leap to these lyrics - from hip-hop artist M.I.A.'s song Paper Planes - as he again tries to break the pole vault world record in Donetsk later this month. That's if he hasn't already made history in Paris this morning.

At the Ukraine meeting, hosted annually by world record holder Sergey Bubka, competitors are allowed to choose their own music to be blasted out of the stadium speakers as they compete.

Paper Planes is one of Hooker's favourite tunes. The title is appropriate, given he has been flying extremely close to the world record height in recent weeks.

Hooker leapt to a personal best of 6.01 metres in New York at the start of the month, then another one of 6.06m in Boston last weekend. In the past fortnight, Hooker has had six attempts at breaking the world record - and several times he has gone within a hair's breadth of breaking Bubka's mark.

"It still hasn't sunk in," Hooker said from France this week. "I'm still pretty surprised that it's all happened. The result of the last week is the result of the last two years' work coming together but I'm still quite surprised by how I'm jumping.

"I know now what it's like to go for 6.16m. I know what it feels like, and that's a really good start. It's all coming into place."

Before the musical meeting in the Ukraine, which has been known to get the huge crowd dancing, there are the Paris Indoors. Hooker will jump this morning, Sydney time, knowing that if he improves his personal best by 10cm, he will break Bubka's world mark of 6.15m.

A huge ask, but one that can be achieved, according to both Hooker and coach Alex Parnov. Competition by competition, they feel they are getting closer.

So why is Hooker jumping so well? Well, just look at some other Beijing gold medallists. Stephanie Rice has been photographed in nightclubs far more than she has in the pool, while, thanks to his chilled-out sabbatical, swimming's golden boy Michael Phelps is better known for bongs than gongs.

In contrast, Hooker is on a natural high. The pole vaulter says his sport does not require the same level of training intensity as some others, and points out he has been no recluse since Beijing. "I do something completely different to what those guys do," Hooker said. "I did have a good time. But I just need to be able to pole vault."



He appeared on Rove, where he was impersonated by comedian Will Ferrell, partied at some of the best events, won awards, made the Australia Day honours list and gave motivational talks. He took a break from training, but never lost sight of his goal. The job wasn't done. He wanted to jump higher still.

After Beijing, Hooker met Athletics Australia media manager Dave Culbert, and the pair came up with a game plan to manage the spiking attention.

"When we sat down after the Games, we asked him what he wanted to do, what he wanted to be involved in," Culbert said. "His belief was that he hadn't achieved all his goals. That the job wasn't done. He wasn't world champion, he wasn't the world record holder.

"He wasn't going to sacrifice training time. He still did a few appearances and speaking engagements, but he took the Cathy Freeman approach, he took the Ian Thorpe approach. His focus was still to get better. He could be famous for being famous or famous for being great. He said, 'I want to be the world record holder."'

So after a few weeks off, Hooker amped up his training routine. He added extra weights and running sessions to his program. If he had a function in Melbourne, Parnov would travel with him to keep the routine going.

"People want to see you. You can't lock yourself away from the world," Parnov said. "He's a great role model for the sport. He stayed healthy. He has a great muscle memory, which helped."

Parnov said his charge was not far off the world record and was adjusting to the big poles he has been using to try to break it.

Bubka calls the discipline he dominated the "professor's sport" because of the precision required. Hooker can only use the big pole during competition - and when he does, it requires perfection, Parnov said.

"At this stage, he needs to be in a few more competitions to feel comfortable on the big pole, and who knows what will happen," Parnov said. "He needs a little bit more competition practice and continue to not be afraid to complete his jump. It's a risk-taking situation. When you go on the last pole, the last pole requires you to do everything perfectly right. To be able to stay in the competition, after six metres, is extremely difficult.

"It's silly to say he will break Bubka's record tomorrow. Bubka jumped his record in 1993. He went to the world championships in '95 and '97 … he never jumped that high ever again. Everything needs to be absolutely perfect, but we are not far off from the record."

A big pole weighs about 3.5 kilograms and is 5.5m long. Charging down a runway and catapulting yourself 6m into the air - upside down - is no easy feat.

"It's very difficult to run with it," Parnov said. "It's very heavy when you run with it, and you must put the pole in the box in a very exact way."

At the moment, Hooker is concentrating specifically on improving his take-off and what he needs to do in the air to make up the world record gap.

"I've got a few things I'm doing a bit better," Hooker said. "My run-up is a bit more aggressive. I've got another year of competition behind me. If I remain uninjured, then I'll consistently improve."

Hooker said his objective this US and European season was to have fun, which has also helped. He hasn't been "blocking" any of his competitors out as he has been waiting by the runway for his turn. Instead, he's been joking with his rivals trackside.

"I've taken a really low-key approach," Hooker said. "I've been pretty easy on myself. I'm not putting any pressure on myself. It's been more about having fun with it than getting serious. There was a lot of pressure on me going into the Olympics. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. It's hard not to do that when you're going for a big goal. I'm doing it because I love doing it and because it's fun."

Parnov can see his charge is more relaxed.

"He is now a more mature and experienced pole vaulter than what he was six months before the Olympics," Parnov said. "He has bigger goals now he has another Olympic Games and a gold medal under his belt. He's not so stressed this year."

His recent personal best, 6.06m, has only been bettered by one man in history: Bubka.

The IAAF still recognises Bubka's 6.14m outdoors at Sestriere as the world record and 6.15m as the world indoor record. Hooker has been attempting 6.16m in an attempt to set an undisputed world mark.

When Parnov turned his expert eye on Hooker three years ago, he knew that he had the build to one day jump this high.

"You can see he is a gifted athlete and has great genes from his athletic parents," Parnov said. "He was very co-ordinated and brave.

"There are many good athletes in this world that are talented, that are focused, that are smart, but not everyone can jump 6m.

"It's a puzzle, and if you put everything together, sooner or later, the plan will work."

[KirkB]

This quote from Hooker is worth repeating ...

"I've got a few things I'm doing a bit better," Hooker said. "My run-up is a bit more aggressive. I've got another year of competition behind me. If I remain uninjured, then I'll consistently improve."

... even tho it's been said a million times before on PVP.

Stay healthy ... vault high!

Yes, it's that simple!

Kirk

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.watoday.com.au/news/sport/sw ... ntentSwap2

Swifter, higher, stronger


Dan Silkstone
February 15, 2009

Steve Hooker clears the bar during the Boston indoor meeting, at which he jumped a personal best of 6.06 metres.

IT WOULD be a coronation to savour, no less for being conducted six metres above the Earth. Today, Steve Hooker — currently Australia's greatest athlete — will jump in Donetsk, the Ukrainian home of the greatest performer in the history of his chosen sport.

Sergey Bubka is the Tiger Woods of pole vault — holder of 35 world records and five-time world champion. His world indoor mark of 6.15 metres has stood for 16 years. Nobody has come close.

Until recently.

Hooker is coming for Bubka and he is carrying a pole in his hand. After an astonishing fortnight, the Beijing gold medallist and his rivals are, well, poles apart. At the Olympics, Hooker was a medal chance — one of a group of guys in the mix. He clinched gold with a high-pressure jump of 5.9 metres, and followed that with an Olympic record of 5.96.

Since then, everything has changed. In the past month, as a new season begins, Hooker has gotten a jump on those who would challenge him. Now, the Australian competes with an opponent not listed on the event sheet.

Today he jumps in Bubka's home town, in a pole vault-only meeting hosted by the long-retired champion. A statue of the man repeatedly voted the greatest athlete of all time stands outside the stadium. It is here that Bubka set his record in 1993. On that occasion, conditions were perfect and the Ukrainian was at his peak.

Hooker can almost smell it. Last week in New York, he jumped 6.01 metres — a personal best and much higher than he had expected so early in the season. He followed it, days later, in Boston by clearing 6.06 — the second highest jump in history — and a fever-affected six metres at the Paris-Bercy indoor meeting on Friday.

Suddenly, the Australian, with two personal bests in a week, joins Bubka as the only men to jump six metres or more at three consecutive meetings, and has a shot at the record. Only a trailing elbow and an unfamiliar heavy pole stopped him claiming it in Boston.

To do so today, at the place where the record was set in 1993, would be special indeed, Hooker told The Sunday Age this week. Bubka's record is one of the great frontiers of modern athletics.

"He's the guy that everybody looked up, to. He is phenomenal and his record speaks for itself," Hooker said. "His technique and the way he jumps, I certainly looked at, and a lot of us tried to model ourselves on what he had done."

The Australian's recent run is all the more remarkable considering his preparation. A fortnight before leaving the country, an accident put him on his back. Hurtling down the runway in Perth, he planted his pole and felt it snap. His knee is still badly bruised. Unable to train for the past month, he has pulled up sore after competing. "I try not to walk around too much and just keep icing it," he said.

It seems to be working.

The day he left for the US and Europe, Hooker said he would be happy to jump 5.8 metres. It would have been a solid hitout before the Australian season begins later this month. Yeah, right.

Bizarrely, the injury has helped. Before hurting his knee, Hooker had been working hard and was at peak fitness. A break from training has been like a forced taper; it has freshened him up.

"I knew if I was able to jump, I'd jump well, but my knee is still injured and I'm hardly training," he said. "I'm just trying to keep right so that I can compete on the weekends."

The world record has been a long-term goal, something he wanted to attempt before his career was finished. He never expected to get close so soon. "It was good to just have a jump at the record the other day," he said. "I wasn't that far away and there is still work I can do."

Hooker knows that the main game — a world championship gold medal to match his Olympic one — awaits in August.

"Looking at the results, it looks like I am right out there on my own at the moment, but you never know if other people are jumping within themselves a bit and saving something for later in the year," he said. "I keep telling myself that I'm not that far ahead of everybody else."

Early in his career, Hooker underwent hypnosis to overcome his fear of taking off. When that pole snapped painfully beneath him a month ago, some of those feelings must have come back.

"It definitely helps to be a little bit fearless," he says. "But there was times when I lost that fearlessness with pole vault and really struggled with it for a couple of years."

But Hooker is made of sterner stuff these days. Where once a bad crash would have dented his confidence, this time it spurred him on. "It could have affected me, but I just kept jumping — despite the injury — and it turned out fine," he said.

"I feel like I am very mentally strong now, but having previously not been so strong is how you have to get to that point. I just appreciate being able to jump after not being able to do it for a while. I'm happy."

America was different this time. Previously, he was there as a mere competitor; now, he was Olympic champion. Media appearances multiplied and he was promoted as a main attraction for the huge meet at Madison Square Garden. Autographs were signed, courtside tickets for a Celtics-Lakers game materialised. Hooker bought himself a guitar and has been using the time spent in hotels to learn to play. In just six months, he has gone from solid competitor to pole-wielding rock star.

"I don't love that side of it, but I understand it is part of what I do now," he said. "I never thought that pole vault could ever lead to this, but I understand it's happened because I have achieved my goals."

For Australian athletics, Hooker — charismatic, friendly and presentable — has been a godsend. Fans will be offered an enticing rematch with Beijing silver medallist Yevgeny Lukyanenko at the Melbourne and Sydney athletics meetings in coming weeks. Anybody who understands how well Hooker is jumping would not want to miss it.

Hooker's coach, Alex Parnov, recently invited children from a Little Athletics meeting to come and see him if they wanted to train for pole vault. More than 20 showed up. Previously, Parnov says, it would have been two. They all want to be like Hooker.

It's a strange thing for the 26-year-old son of two olympic athletes, who took up pole vault as a teenager in Box Hill — inspired by former world record-holder Emma George. "I started for the same reason that kids are picking it up now," he said. "There was someone with a bit of a profile doing it and I wanted to have a go."

Today's meeting will feature the strongest field of his overseas tour. All the top Russians, including Lukyanenko, will be there. Last year, the Russian beat Hooker in most of their encounters but lost out in the one that mattered. Now the Australian has a warning for his rivals.

"I don't feel I am pushing things at the moment," he said. "Technically I'm going well, but I still feel that maybe I am jumping within myself a little."

Parnov, a veteran of the Russian set-up and a contemporary of Bubka, has said that if anybody was going to inherit the great man's crown it would be his charge. "He is getting more confident as he gets more experience," he said. "To get the record, he has to do everything right, but also get the right conditions. Even Bubka spent seven years trying to beat this record and could never do it again. But I think Steve has got everything to get there. He has got the package you need to be able to jump that high."