If Ashton Eaton trained for his best event, what would it be and what would be his PR?

CO Coach wrote:

This post is remarkably misinformed. Renaud Lavillenie's coach, Phillipe D'Encausse, presented at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno last year and he presented data showing Renaud having been clocked at speeds as fast as 10.66 m/s on the runway during his jumps. One would have to assume that Renaud could get pretty close to 11 m/s when not carrying a 17 foot long pole. Renaud is clearly the fastest pole vaulter in the world today, probably ever. That is why he is the world record holder at all of 5'9" tall in an event typically dominated by guys over 6' tall.

According to Petrov (Bubka's coach) Bubka never achieved speeds much faster than 10 m/s during the vault, the fastest semi-official speed I've seen for Bubka on the runway was around 9.94 m/s, taken from a 5 meter split just before the plant. References to Bubka's supposed 10 second 100m speed are completely unsubstantiated, I believe these references stem from taking his runway speed and applying that over 100m which at best would give him flying 100m time of around 10 seconds. Realistically Bubka would have been lucky to break 11 seconds FAT out of blocks. Steve Hooker, the Australian record holder and Olympic gold medalist is another nearly 20 foot vaulter with an official 100m PR of 10.82. It's reasonable to expect that Bubka would have been in that range somewhere, with Renaud Lavillenie probably at least a couple of tenths of a second faster than that. Here's another discussion on Bubka's speed:

http://trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/archive/index.php/t-108991.html

The fact is Bubka is taller than Renaud at 6'2" tall and he had a more dynamic take off (he jumped off the ground more before loading the pole) which allowed him to jump roughly the same height as Renaud from a slower speed. Of course the rest of Bubka's technique is the standard by which all vaulters are still measured by today, which all added up to make him the best vaulter of all time.

So back to Ashton Eaton. He would probably be the fastest pole vaulter we've ever seen. His 100m times and his long jumps puts his top speed in the range of 11.2+ m/s. Frankly I don't think we've ever seen an athlete anywhere near capable of a 27' long jump focus on the the pole vault before. It's possible if he wasn't training for the throws and the 400, 1500 etc he might be capable of something closer to 11.4-11.5 m/s for his top speed. So put a 17'6" pole in his hand and get him up to something like 10.8+ m/s on the runway, man it would be unlike anything we've ever seen in the event. Of course there is a heck of a lot more to the vault than just runway speed, but if we could magically send Ashton to Russia to study under Petrov for a couple of years I like his odds at breaking the world record. I'm not sure we could say that about any of the other 9 events.

Grizzly behr wrote:

I was at that talk. He said renaud runs 10m/s with the pole, not 10.66. He also specifically said that what made the remarkable was that he couldn't break 11 in the open 11 and had a flying top end speed with no pole of about 10.5m/s, so he was very efficient with the pole. The top end speed you reported would add up to a much faster open 100 than Renaud has run. And renaud has run the open 100 in multiple races over the past 4 years, so we have a very good idea of what he is (and is not) capable of. He's an 11 flat 100m runner, not faster. The times you are misremembering from summit would add up to more like a 10.7 open 100, which he hasn't come close to.

These numbers add up. Comparing them to myself, my flying top end speed is about 10.2m/s. I have run 11.5 in the open 100, so it is about proportional to renaud's times. I can only do about 8.6m/s at takeoff though at the end of a season, a much lower percentage of my max speed compared to him.

Regarding Ashton, your numbers are off. He most definitely can run faster at his top end than you claim. However my point is that he doesn't hit those speeds on the runway with a pole. I don't think he could even with practice.

Regarding Bubka's reported 10 flat speed, he was on the nationals team on the 4x100 at two European championships. He wasn't making that squad with 11 flat speed, that's for sure, he was certainly much faster than that. Despite having much better top end speed than renaud, he had roughly the same runway speed. We have to just believe Petrov when he says he did video analysis with practice jumps to get that 10m/s speed at takeoff, but it does fit with attempts to approximate a runway speed from competition video.

The free takeoff is debatable if it adds to the jump. I agree with you that it does, but many would argue that it doesnt. Renaud has done just fine without it, so maybe it helps some athletes and not others.

So back to ashton. The point is he is much like bubka in terms of speed and athletic prowess and likely even a step up. But he doesn't hit the same speeds with the pole as Bubka and renaud. Nor does he have their gymnastic ability. I see him being a potential high 18, low 19 foot. Damned good, yes. World record contender, I doubt it.

If you think ashton could be the world's best vaulter, why not trey hardee? He is almost as fast in the open 100 as ashton and a full .7s faster in the open 100 than renaud. He has also been vaulting for almost 14 years. He went to college on a vaulting scholarship.

The point is, what makes renaud a special vaulter isn't speed. He has just enough speed to capitalize on all the other things that make him incredible. Bubka's vastly superior speed didn't make him better than renaud. Likewise, unless ashton is a natural vaulter to rival renaud and we just haven't seen it yet, his extra speed potential isn't going to help him.

Renaud has also been kind enough to have done the Dec as a senior as well as did lj, hurdles, and the 100 many times in college. So again we have more metrics to compare. While he is decent all the lj and hurdles, he is not at the same level as ashton of course. Again this adds weight to the idea that just because ashton is a ridiculously fast and powerful athlete, it won't make him a better vaulter than Renaud. If it did, he'd already be renaud's match just on the limited training he has done, because he is that much better than Renaud in these events.

The other Dec events aren't worth comparing because renaud didn't practice those for 8+ years.

CO Coach wrote:

I was at the talk as well, I actually had Phillipe copy his powerpoint slides and training videos onto a memory stick for me. I just looked it over again and he specifically has a table on one of his slides that lists 10.66 m/s as a speed Renaud has hit during a pole vault jump. He has some other speeds listed between 10.66 and 10 m/s as well, showing that it wasn't a fluke. No where in this presentation did he talk about Renaud's 100m times or list any times on any of his slides for him. Where we at the same presentation? If Renaud has run some autotimed 100s in the last 5 years, they should be on the internet somewhere, please post a link to them if you have the data. I do know he runs some relays for his club team in France once in a while. I'd say any times before 2010 are pretty meaningless since he realistically wasn't nearly as fast before then than he has been since 2012.

You are right about one thing and that is speed isn't everything in the vault. I've seen high school boys who had legit 11 second flat PRs in the 100m that were only vaulting 13'. It takes a special kind of person to want to actually hit the box at top speed.

Let's be honest if Eaton thought he could be a great pole vaulter he probably would have focused on that instead of the 400 hurdles. The fact that he chose to focus on the 400 hurdles on his "off" years tell us everything that we need to know regarding this thread.