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http://www.athletics.com.au/fanzone/380/hookersixmetres

27.01.2008
Hooker hits the heights
Former world no.1 Steve Hooker has joined the exclusive 6.00m club, clearing the magical barrier in interclub competition in Perth.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games champion and world cup winner was returning to competition after a bout of glandular fever, making the most of the ideal conditions at Perth’s Perry Lakes Stadium to become the third Australian to reach the sought after height.

Hooker, 25, becomes the 15th man to clear the height, and the third Australian behind Dmitri Markov, who jumped 6.05m to win the world title in Edmonton in 2001, and Paul Burgess, who cleared 6.00m at the same location in 2005.

Hooker is the 13th man to achieve the feat outdoors and the first since reigning world champion Brad Walker joined the 6.00m club in July 2006.

Hooker, who went into the world championships in Osaka last year as one of the favourites but had to settle for ninth place after gambling with his height selections, said he was treating his return to competition as a training run, but the ideal conditions made his barrier-breaking leap possible.

“It was my first comp of the year and we were treating it like an extended training session.

“I cleared the opening height of 5.50 on my first attempt and then went to 5.70, 5.80 and 5.90 before having a crack at 6.00m.

“The conditions were perfect and my first attempt was good, but I needed to go up to a bigger pole, on my second I bailed and got it on the third.

After mistakenly believing he had cleared 6.00m when setting his personal best of 5.96m in Berlin in 2006, Hooker said he had already achieved the feat “mentallyâ€Â

http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=43037.html

Hooker joins exclusive 6.00m vault club
Sunday 27 January 2008
Australia’s Steve Hooker has joined the exclusive 6.00m pole vaulting club, clearing the magical barrier in interclub competition in Perth, Australia, today.

The 2006 Commonwealth Games champion and World Cup winner was returning to competition after a bout of glandular fever, making the most of the ideal conditions at Perth’s Perry Lakes Stadium to become the third Australian to reach the sought after height.

Hooker, 25, becomes the 15th man to clear the height, and the third Australian behind Dmitri Markov, who jumped 6.05m to win the World title in Edmonton in 2001, and Paul Burgess, who cleared 6.00m at the same location in 2005. Hooker is the 13th man to achieve the feat outdoors and the first since USA’s reigning World champion Brad Walker joined the 6.00m club in July 2006.




Steve Hooker (AUS)
(Hasse Sjogren)
Hooker, who went into the World championships in Osaka last year as one of the favourites but had to settle for ninth place after gambling with his height selections, said he was treating his return to competition as a training run, but the ideal conditions made his barrier-breaking leap possible.

“It was my first comp of the year and we were treating it like an extended training session,â€Â

pole? grip? video? hopefully soon. haha

Did I understand correctly that this was an outdoor meet?

SlickVT wrote:Did I understand correctly that this was an outdoor meet?

It is summer in Australia right now...

Steve was jumping on a 5.20 -11.5 flex Pacer carbon -grip 5.07 -stands 60 -third attempt.

http://news.smh.com.au/hooker-eyes-aust ... -1oo4.html

Hooker eyes Australian pole vault record

January 29, 2008 - 5:54AM

Pole vaulter Steve Hooker has set his sights on the national record after becoming the third Australian to clear the six-metre mark.

Hooker cleared 6.0m on Sunday night in Perth in his return to competition from a bout of glandular fever.

The 25-year-old joins Dmitry Markov and Paul Burgess as the only Australians to jump the milestone height.

Hooker, who joined the exclusive club at a meeting at Perth's Perry Lakes Stadium, said he was now eyeing Markov's national record of 6.05m, set in 2001.

"I knew I was training really well but normally the first comp is just shaking out the cobwebs, so I knew I was capable of jumping it but I wasn't expecting it," Hooker said.

"I stopped jumping after I jumped 6m last night but I felt like if I put the bar up to 6.06m I could have had a really good crack at it.

"Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I get the chance to do that."

Hooker, the 15th pole vaulter in history to clear 6m, thought he achieved the milestone in Berlin in 2006 - only for judges to mistakenly own up to setting the bar at 5.96m, his personal best until Sunday night.

"The jumped that I did (in Berlin) was good enough to clear 6.01m so in my mind I had already conquered it," he said.

"That's why it wasn't so much of a mental barrier for me because all the elements associated with the mental barrier, I had already conquered - I put together a good jump when I thought the bar was at that height."

The West Australian will now temper his program in a bid to ensure a full recovery from glandular fever.

"With this fatigue-related stuff, you are never really completely over it," he said.

"I am going to be really careful this week because competing takes so much more out of you than just training, so I am just going to look after myself and make sure I maintain my health and don't rush back into competing again too early.

"I basically didn't train for the second half of December and it has just been a slow building up process all through January, just try to do as much as I can without my health going backwards."

Hooker's plans to compete again in Perth this weekend would be determined by how he was feeling, ahead of confirmed starts at the World Athletics Tour meet in Melbourne on February 21 and the Australian titles and Olympic selection trials in Brisbane from February 28.

He will then travel to Spain for the world indoor championships starting March 7.

Gotta love an Olympic year. Congrats to Hooker, what a bad a**.

I spoke with Alex Parnov, Hooker's coach, and he says he does not have video due to something about flights and luggage and not having the camera there, but he has promised to send me high quality video when Hooker jumps higher

http://www.flocasts.org/flotrack/flotra ... &vid=27991


He put up his warm up jump on flotrack.com. This jump is HUGE

Wow thats crazy... is it just me or for a 6m vaulter is he not very fast his last few steps? Could be because its a warm up too.