Blind Pole Vaulter

if she can pole vault she is not blind

Actually there was a big deal about this last year.

Deuce of Diamonds wrote:

if she can pole vault she is not blind

Reporters get confused between blindness, the made-up term "legal blindness" and being visually impaired.

Apparently Letsrunners get confused by this, too.

knows something wrote:

Deuce of Diamonds wrote:

if she can pole vault she is not blind

Reporters get confused between blindness, the made-up term "legal blindness" and being visually impaired.

Apparently Letsrunners get confused by this, too.

Aren't all terms made up?

How about you look at the story.

She is blind.

Could see as much as we could throw a coffee straw (about 10% field of view).

Then lost all color.

Now it has deteriorated to worse than that. She needs a seeing eye dog now and has had multiple surgeries to little or no avail since a baby.

Actually read the story and stop trying to find a reason to denigrate it and you would realize how amazing this girl is.

Plenty of People who have 20/20 vision suck at the PV and she is more than competitive.

She has jumped 11-6 in competition and 12-6 in practice. For a high school girl, those are solid marks. If she jumped 12-6 in competition, that would get her at least a half-ride at most DI programs. Doing that while blind (and if you read the article, she now has to follow the sound of her coach whistling to go straight on the runway) is extremely impressive.

Mutiger31 wrote:

How about you look at the story.

She is blind.

Could see as much as we could throw a coffee straw (about 10% field of view).

Then lost all color.

Now it has deteriorated to worse than that. She needs a seeing eye dog now and has had multiple surgeries to little or no avail since a baby.

Actually read the story and stop trying to find a reason to denigrate it and you would realize how amazing this girl is.

Plenty of People who have 20/20 vision suck at the PV and she is more than competitive.

She is an inspiration and a tremendous athlete, especially given her disability. She has extremely limited vision. Extremely. But she is NOT blind. For those struggling with English, 'blind' means unable to see anything. It's an absolute term, just like 'pregnant'. You can't be partly pregnant - you either are or you aren't.

Not knocking her - just the hyperbole fools on Letsrun.

If she can't drive b/c of her condition, needs a seeing eye dog, and has to have beepers on the runway then she is blind.

She is 90% blind.

Is someone who is 90% deaf, not deaf for all intents and purposes.

What's the level then?

If she had 1% of vision would she still not be blind?

terminology wrote:

She is an inspiration and a tremendous athlete, especially given her disability. She has extremely limited vision. Extremely. But she is NOT blind. For those struggling with English, 'blind' means unable to see anything. It's an absolute term, just like 'pregnant'. You can't be partly pregnant - you either are or you aren't.

Not knocking her - just the hyperbole fools on Letsrun.

How about next time you want to call somebody out on not knowing the definition of a word, you know the definition yourself. From Miriam Webster:

a (1) : sightless (2) : having less than 1⁄10 of normal vision in the more efficient eye when refractive defects are fully corrected by lenses

She fits the definition of "blind" according to the most commonly used dictionary, therefore she is blind.

"This season, unable to see even contrast any longer, she uses a homing device near the box to guide her by sound."

serious answer wrote:

"This season, unable to see even contrast any longer, she uses a homing device near the box to guide her by sound."

Saw this story a few weeks ago and the coverage certainly made it out to be that she was totally blind, "using that homing device" to even find the box. However, there was an update on her state meet performance today, and there was footage of her vaulting and then landing in the pit. After her landing, she had no trouble naturally walking back from her vault landing, right on target (no correction in course as she got closer to him) toward her coach standing on one side of the box and reaching her hand into his motionless hand to get help down from the mat (he did not bring his hand to hers, his was motionless and she grabbed his hand perfectly. Then she walks back next to the runway perfectly and even looks at and walks up to her competitors before they open their mouths to speak and stops and turns to chat them up.

She is clearly not as "blind" as the ESPN coverage and her comments have made he our to be. Looks like she's a Runyan type "blind athlete".

She's just too cool! What a brave, inspiring, talented and determined young woman.

Tried pole vault once, it hurt, stuck to running don't know how they do it let alone being significantly visually impaired.