Is there a noticeable difference in height between 6.23m and 6.24m when jumping? I would agree with the OP that a cm increase detracts from the awesomeness and makes it a meh accomplishment. Now if he had gone from 6.15m to 6.23m. that would have been more note worthy.
have you seen a clip of the WR vault? He would not have cleared a cm higher yesterday. Now, for some of his records (and possibly even at some intermediate heights), he has had ample height for bigger bars, but you just never know. Bubka did skip some cms here and there, so you never know. Lavillenie famously injured himself putting the bar at 6.21 after his 6.16WR (dumb decision from a favorite athlete of mine!)
Who knows, maybe KC Lightfoot or EJ Obiena will start putting some pressure on Mondo by jumping some really big bars and Mondo will have no choice but to try to put the record closer to out of reach.
If you got a $100K bonus each time you broke your school record, would you break it by the maximum amount possible once or would you do it by 0.01sec as many times as possible? It is still the record every time.
I don't know he seemed pretty excited by the clearance. Sure he could be faking it like some YouTube Minecraft reaction video bullsh*t but honestly he seemed pleased enough for it to be 'real' for me.
That said first attempt.
Its very like isinbayeva though watching it go up 1 or 2cm and it's like come on, imagine if bolt jogged to 9:69 then 9:68 etc people would switch off
He competes in a niche event, is a league ahead of everyone else, and every time he sets a tiny PB (which happens in many meets) he is celebrated as if he is rewriting what was previously thought impossible.
We have seen this before.
Bubka reportedly cleared 21 feet fairly routinely in practice, but played the "1/8 inch at a time" WR bonus game to maximize his income. Yawn.
Bubka routinely cleared 21 feet in practice? Yet never went higher than 20 feet and 1.5 inches in competition and the just set WR is 20 feet 5.25 inches.
What if they switched to a light sensor measurement, and just identified the highest point your whole body cleared? Then you get three attempts, three more for finals, like the long jump.
That would take away the fun/drama of the vertical jumps.
Totally correct. In the US Mondo could have a hamstring issue before/during the Trials or fluke conditions that result in him not making Olympic Team. While the US system is "brutally" fair it also results in leaving likely medalist behind for someone who will not medal.
We should have a provision for exceptional athletes who are like Mondo to have "pass" through Trials but need to show "form" prior to Olympics to keep spot.
Provisions like this would only affect maybe 1-2 athletes per cycle but insure US has best athletes participating. Again the standard would need to be exceptionally high like Mondo/Sydney level performers. Other countries must laugh when we leave a potential gold medalist behind for our 4th "best" athlete with little shot to medal.
Also, athletes like Mondo/Sydney could prepare for Olympics without having to cut training for Trials and possibly reduce chances to win.
I'd be for a rule that if someone is both the highest american at the DL final and the global championship, and top 3 in both, they are automatically on team USA the following year. So for 2024, these athletes are already qualified for team USA:
Men:
Quincy Hall, Grant Holloway, Rai Benjamin, JaVaughn Harrison
Mondo was almost created in a lab for the event. If you listen to the questions he answered post meet, he does not jump very high in practice. He has an idea where he is but he does not come close to the height until the meets. He looked very fast down the runway for this WR clearance. He will continue improving as long as he maintains or even improves that runway speed. He will be able to use bigger and stiffer poles. It does make me think about a comment Hendricks made a while back about how he only competes with a limited number of poles, almost dismissing having a large arsenal, which is what Mondo has. There is no event more technical than the pole vault.
Yep, if you spend any amount of time around the pole vault the vast majority of vaulting in practice is done from short(er) runs on smaller poles. The biggest/stiffest poles a vaulter will ever jump on is almost certainly going to be in competition. Stories of Bubka or anyone else vaulting significantly higher in practice than they ever did in a meet is just as hard to believe as it would be if someone said Jakob ran a 1500 in 3:20 in practice.
Probably the closest we have with Bubka is this vault which has been argued to be one of the highest ever:
Men's pole vault competition from the 1993 Athletics World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. 3 men clear 5.90m with Sergey Bubka winning the competition ...
Again just looking at hip height Bubka's hips were probably around 6.20-6.30 meters in the air compared to the bar which was at 5.90 meters. But when you follow the rest of Bubka's body over the bar at the lowest points of his legs (early in the clearance) and his chest and head (late in the clearance) it doesn't seem likely he could have cleared much more than about 6.10 meters on this jump, which makes sense as by this time Bubka had already set the WR at 6.13.
This was what Bubka did. He broke the WR 17 times outdoors:
6.14 m (20 ft 1+3⁄4 in) 6.13 m (20 ft 1+5⁄16 in) 6.12 m (20 ft 15⁄16 in) 6.11 m (20 ft 9⁄16 in) 6.10 m (20 ft 3⁄16 in) 6.09 m (19 ft 11+3⁄4 in) 6.08 m (19 ft 11+3⁄8 in) 6.07 m (19 ft 11 in) 6.06 m (19 ft 10+9⁄16 in) 6.05 m (19 ft 10+3⁄16 in) 6.03 m (19 ft 9+3⁄8 in) 6.01 m (19 ft 8+5⁄8 in) 6.00 m (19 ft 8+1⁄4 in) 5.94 m (19 ft 5+7⁄8 in) 5.90 m (19 ft 4+5⁄16 in) 5.88 m (19 ft 3+1⁄2 in) 5.85 m (19 ft 2+5⁄16 in)
He did it very incrementally so he could collect the big paychecks for breaking WR. Smart money move.
Couldn't agree more with OP. when i see his videos online it reminds me of those YouTube videos where a guy solves a Rubik's cube while juggling it. Like - wow that's neat - but about 50 people globally are actually 'training' at it.
He'll never get the praise of a sprinter like Noah Lyles or Shacarri Richardson no mater how much of a crowd pleaser he is, so I'm empathetic towards anything that gives him publicity because the game is stacked against him.
I'd be for a rule that if someone is both the highest american at the DL final and the global championship, and top 3 in both, they are automatically on team USA the following year. So for 2024, these athletes are already qualified for team USA:
Men:
Quincy Hall, Grant Holloway, Rai Benjamin, JaVaughn Harrison
Bubka notably failed to medal in several championships in his era, which demonstrates the degree to which the OP (and other ignorant people who agree) are off base and do not understand the vault.
But hey, complain about TV commercials during the 10k while you trash the events YOU don’t appreciate.
Track is a niche sport in part because of this self-absorption. You can’t be bothered to even tolerate events you don’t understand but you want everyone to tolerate YOUR event. You are embarrassing yourself with your shallowness. At least the ManningCast owns the fact that they only really root for offense (in a campy way) but you won’t catch them actually tearing down the sport.
But I’m wasting my time with a ManningCast reference with a bunch of distance dorks, aren’t I? (Let it be noted I love the distances personally.)
He competes in a niche event, is a league ahead of everyone else, and every time he sets a tiny PB (which happens in many meets) he is celebrated as if he is rewriting what was previously thought impossible.
We have seen this before.
Bubka reportedly cleared 21 feet fairly routinely in practice, but played the "1/8 inch at a time" WR bonus game to maximize his income. Yawn.
Others have pointed out the stupidity of this comment, but no surprise it is largely met with wide support by the Legion of LRC Lunkheads.