The number is the weight of the pole vaulter written on her hand with a sharpie... This should never happen and needs to stop.
Let's finally get this rule changed.
What can you do?
- Sign this petition Click to sign
- Share your story in the comments below or on the instagram post click Here
- Speak up about this rule to your officials and States governing body
- We need people from every state to let us know how your state handels this rule. Click here to help
I've been posting about this for a few years now. This year, people started sharing their stories with me.
This one really hurt to read...
Why the rule is there
In its simplest terms, it's there for liability. The rule was created as an attempt to keep the pole vault safer.
The concept is that by having pole vaulters on poles that are rated above their weight that the pole is less likely to break, therefore that vaulters will be safe.
In theory it's a good rule!
The issue with the rule
If you've been in the sport long enough, you know that there are many variables in the pole vault. While I applaud the rules committee for trying to keep the pole vault safer there are 2 major issues I see.
1. A pole to big is just as bad as one that's too small.
When an athlete weighs more than the weight of their pole, they are then put on a pole to big for their ability level. As pole vaulters and coaches, we know when you're on a pole too big, you tend to land around the box, or back on the runway. That doesn't sound safer to me.
But that can be fixed by having a coach tell the vaulter to grip down and straight pole. That's a whole different issue. The big issues is
2. High School Vaulters being publically weighed is creating mental health problems.
The National High School Federation has it set up where each state can determine how the rules are enforced.
- Some states have a weight verification form signed by the coaches
- Some states write the athletes weights on the hands, or bib number
- Some states publically yell the athletes weight out lough
- Some states have a weigh in line where the yell out their weights
The ones in red make me sick... It's so gross.
What can we do?
It's up to us to create change.
A lot of people smarter than me like Lawers, parents, athletes, and even a people in public policy have reached out wanting to help. Here's what they suggested.
What we're proposing is that, every state adopts the coaches weight verification form.
This would stop
- Athlete weigh-ins at meets
- Weights written on the athletes body, uniform or bib.
- It would stop officials from yelling out an athletes weight
Does it change the weight rule? Not yet, but one step at a time.
What can you do?
- Sign this petition Click to sign
- Share your story in the comments below or on the instagram post click Here
- Speak up about this rule to your officials and States governing body
- We need people from every state to let us know how your state handels this rule. Click here to help
"Original Instagram Post With Stories in the comments
"I had podcast with olympic gold medalist swimmer Samantha Livingstoone who said she used to have a coach that publicly weighed them before practice and because of that, developed an eating disorder.
Katie Moon olympic gold medalist in the pole vault has been very open about her journey through body image issues in this sport and works for to overcome them.
The stats are wild,
- Up to 45% of female and 19% of male athletes develop an ED and athletes are more likely than non athletes to have them.
Along with EDs other mental health issues arise like depression and anxiety.
One of the biggest causes of these disorders is entry to the sport.
- Like cutting weight
- Believing being lighter will make you perform better
- or not being able to pole vault due to the weight rule.
The idea of the rule is to keep vaulters on poles that are safe, but is it doing that? We all know that weight is just one of many variables that bend poles.
What about grip? If you have a 13 130 pole but the vaulter grips down at 11 and weighs 140. Say 3 inches of grip is roughly 5 lbs of pole... gripping at 11 adds 40 lbs of pole making it roughly an 11 170, completely safe for that vaulter with their grip. But illegal due to the rule...
Or is being on a pole too big safer? The rule is forcing kids to be on a poles to big for their skill level... making them come up short or land in the box/runway.
What I'm trying to say is writing the weight on these athletes increases the risk of unnecessary trauma that can lead to physical and psychological disorders, maybe even suicide. This is all in hope to keep the vaulter safer... but safer from what?
I suggest, At the very least, stop writing the weights on vaulters hands and jerseys, and move to a coaches weight verification form. It's not perfect but it's a start.
As one dad told me as he was talking to the coach who wrote the weight on his athletes hand "You must have never had a daughter..."
This needs to stop.
#polevault #teamhoot #polevaulter #weightshaming #trackandfield #polevault
#vaulter
#athletics #eatingdisorder #sportpsyc
I read the comments after posting my previous comment. I have been coaching for 30 seasons now and have seen a LOT of stuff. IF you put a kid on a pole that is under their weight, like the 170 lb girls on a 120 pole, and you get them bending that pole, there will be degradation of that pole and it is very likely to break and injure that kid. IF you are having this problem, you have your kids on poles that are too close to their weight. We have young girls who weigh 100 lbs jumping on 130 poles because anything smaller is simply too small for them. Of course these are very athletic girls who have done gymnastics and tumbling and, for them, using that pole is no big deal to them. We have poles from 90 lbs up to 180 lbs and we match the poles to the kids’ abilities and do not stress keeping them on tiny poles. Not sure where you guys start kids but AWAY from the pit is best. Start with pop ups on the football field or track, move to pop ups onto the front part of the pit to get them used to leaving the ground and to get them to trust their swing. Go to the long jump pit and do sand plants to get them on the poles. They DO NOT need to bend the pole at the start of their pole vault career and putting them on smaller poles in order to make the pole bend is a dumb and dangerous mistake. Have them straight pole until they get used to jumping on a pole and GRADUALLY work them to the point where they are bending the pole. The shortcuts are dangerous for the athletes.
That’s my quarter’s worth. Sorry but I have seen coaches do what some of you are saying you do with your kids and I have seen many injuries as a result. Pole vault is a step by step process, not a get right to working on the top of the vault from day one..
In WV, coaches must list each competitor from their school, ask the kids how much they weigh, write that number down on the form, and then list which poles they can use. I do not limit them to specific poles, I just write 130+ for any kid who weighs over 125 and up to 130. Then you give that to the meet official and that covers the meet and meet official’s ass if something happens to the kid as the result of using a pole under the kid’s actual weight. The thing is, you ask them at the first of the season, fill out the form, get the AD and principal’s signatures and the coach signs. You use that form the entire season. There are coaches who, in order to allow the kid to easily bend the pole, lie about the weight of their kids. It’s sad.
Are there any updates on this? I remember signing this a few years back and it is rearing up its ugly head again. I have athletes that are not going out because of it.
I’m a new high school coach so this was all new to me. Weigh-ins required at NIAA Regional trials and finals. I have a very sweet sophomore pole vaulter in her second year. She faced many challenges this year (including a minor fracture on her top hand wrist which took her out of competition for two weeks in the middle of the season. The week before regional trials, we were finally getting her close to her previous PR (carrying the pole for the first time too). We worked on the pole drop, the plant, swinging her left leg. She was getting very excited and optimistic (actually OUT of her head for the first time in weeks). Then she was advised about weigh-ins at Regional Trials. She rocks a 120lb pole and weighs about the same. The 130 was too much for her. She went home to weigh herself: 121. Again in the morning: 119. In the evening: 122. Why? Because weight shifts like that. She began to stress about it despite our encouragement. She changed her eating habits for a couple of days. She continued to stress. She weighed herself the day of: 121. She continued to stress. She did not eat a breakfast before going to the meet. She continued to stress. Weigh in was not until about 9am. She continued not to eat and continued to stress. She weighs in, the needle vacillates between 119 and 121 for several seconds before settling on 119. She can use her pole but she is now mentally fatigued and physically off center. She cleared her season best and scratched out on her pr, ending her season. She had (reasonably) high hopes for this season. She had set backs and roared back from them. This weigh-in rule stopped all of the momentum in an instant and forced her into doing some unhealthy things. Also, and most tragic, she believes SHE failed this season. “I couldn’t even match last year’s PR.” This rule needs to be changed.
At the State Meet in Kentucky, weigh ins are required. Everyone goes to the scale, the weight is read aloud and recorded by another official, and then their poles are examined for being allowable or not based on the publicly read weight. Not as bad as some states, but not good either. Without going too much into it, it would make far more sense from a safety standpoint to change the rules to mandate larger pits and have the standards range move from 45-80 to something much deeper so that all vaulters have to train to jump well into the pit. Several weeks ago I was at a meet that had about 40 kids entered into the vault. Another coach approached me and asked for help with poles for her experience-deficit kids. Since this is a normal request for me to get, I agreed, but then had to check what weight the kids were, and one of the girls weighed about 170, and had literally no experience. So in a training environment, I’d normally put her on something like a 10-120 until she started bending the pole, and then move up poles from there. Instead, because of a rule that seems to have more benefit for the pole manufacturers than kids, the closest “legal” pole I had with me was a 13-170 – and of course that didn’t work even a little bit. Not to mention that a 10-170 doesn’t exist without a specific order of a new pole. (and we could have quite the conversation from that on using cut down poles and the legality of that.) So not only was this young lady told in a very public setting that her weight was preventing her from jumping on a pole that she could reasonably improve her skill on, but she was handed a discouraging if not embarassing experience. She, and several of her team mates did not compete at that meet as a result of this. I’d bet she has not continued trying to learn to vault – and who could blame her with that introduction to vaulting?
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