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are there any famous highlights or controversies in pole vault?
in which olympic games have records been broken in pole vault?

In the 1968 Olympics, Casey Carrigan from Orting, WA represented the US while a senior in high school. In the qualifying round, he cleared the necessary height on the 3rd try... but his pole passed under the bar and it counted as a miss. They changed that rule not long after, but it was too late for Carrigan who failed to make the finals.

In 1972 at Munich, Bob Seagren the World Record Holder at the time showed up with his bag full of Green Catapoles and was told a couple of days before the competition that his poles(greenCats ) had been declared illegal. He went on to finish 2nd to Wolfgang Nordwig of East Germany who was using the old Black Catapoles.
I don't believe a World record has been set at the Olympics since before WWII. The Olympic Record was set in 1996 by Jean Galfione at 19'5".

In '88 the Soviets showed up after having boycotted the '84 games in LA. You could see the impending fall of the USSR in the fact that all the Soviet vaulters had tennis balls on the end of their poles instead of pole tips. That day (I'm arguing for best vault comp I've ever heard of) the Olympic record was broken 3 times on the way to Bubka's one and only gold medal.

Yep...Gregoiry Yegorov broke it at 19'0 then Gatuallin at 19'2 then Bubka made 19'4 after passing his last attempt at 19'1--I think.

Not sure if this is fact or fiction but...

In the '80 Olympics (which the US boycotted), rumor has it that one of the Polish vaulters, either Kozakiewicz or Slusarski was down to their final attempt at the winning height, when the Soviets, in an effort to make the Polish vaulter fail, opened the gates to the stadium, which allowed a huge headwind to rush in. The Polish vaulter supposedly got so pissed off that he exploded down the runway, cleared the bar to win, then flipped off the entire Soviet audience in the stands!

Anyone else know more about this?

Yea, that's the story. He did flip them all off. I'm not sure what the situation was except that they were booing him during the vault. LB

Oldcoach wrote:In 1972 at Munich, Bob Seagren the World Record Holder at the time showed up with his bag full of Green Catapoles and was told a couple of days before the competition that his poles(greenCats ) had been declared illegal. He went on to finish 2nd to Wolfgang Nordwig of East Germany who was using the old Black Catapoles.
I don't believe a World record has been set at the Olympics since before WWII. The Olympic Record was set in 1996 by Jean Galfione at 19'5".

OOPs Coach you forgot about 1980 Moscow, Yes I know America was not there so it does not count right LOL well Wally Kozakiewicz Jump two Olympic records in the meet to capture the GOLD with a World record on my Vaulting Pole Fibersport. 18'11 1/2"

Bruce Caldwell
Former owner of Fibersport Inc
Now President of ESSXsport Corp.
www.essxsport.com

Oldcoach wrote:In 1972 at Munich, Bob Seagren the World Record Holder at the time showed up with his bag full of Green Catapoles and was told a couple of days before the competition that his poles(greenCats ) had been declared illegal. He went on to finish 2nd to Wolfgang Nordwig of East Germany who was using the old Black Catapoles.
I don't believe a World record has been set at the Olympics since before WWII. The Olympic Record was set in 1996 by Jean Galfione at 19'5".

MORE INFO

I bet you did not know this; both Green Catapole and the Blue Sky Pole were banned at the 1972 Olympics. It was just that the owners of Skypole wanted to keep it hush hush and Pacer the exclusive distributor of Catapole at the time George Moore Posted ads that they had the “unfair advantageâ€Â

im not quite sure where this was or even when it was, but jeaf galifone and jeff hartwig were in a comp at 5.80 or so. hartwig missed his attempts at said hieght and galifone on third try, went over the bar and hit it, it was falling off when he grabbed his left hand arround it and placed it back on to a vicory. the vids are at www.stabhochsprung.com

krupat wrote:im not quite sure where this was or even when it was, but jeaf galifone and jeff hartwig were in a comp at 5.80 or so. hartwig missed his attempts at said hieght and galifone on third try, went over the bar and hit it, it was falling off when he grabbed his left hand arround it and placed it back on to a vicory. the vids are at www.stabhochsprung.com

You're thinking off '99 World Indoors in Japan. Hartwig was called for volzing on a jump over 6.00m then the next jump Galfione clears the bar but volzes worse then Hartwig, doesn't get called for it and wins the gold. At least that is my understanding of what happened.

yea, i guess, im not quite sure either