Word: poling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...track-and-field events, the Soviet-bloc men outdid their hypothetical Olympic rivals in nine. Power, not speed, was their forte. In the brawny field events-hammer, javelin, discus and shotput-three Soviet athletes and one East German exceeded the winning distances in Los Angeles. In the pole vault, the high-flying Konstantin Volkov of the the U.S.S.R. cleared 19 ft. ¼in., two inches higher than the winning Olympic vault. Five world records were achieved in the pool. "The water is fast here," said one Soviet fan, and 6-ft. 4-in. Sergei Zabolotnov proved...
...Frenchmen and two Americans argued it out in the last stages of " the pole vault. Only Mike Tully of the U.S. deigned to try at 18 ft. 6½ in. and casually cleared. Pierre Quinon of France went over comfortably at 18 ft. 8¼ in., while Countryman Thierry Vigneron and the other American, Earl Bell, fell out. Tully passed. Again on the first vault, Quinon surmounted 18 ft. 10¼ in. Tully passed once more. But they both failed the next height, and therefore Quinon, 22, won. "I am young and learning," he said, "perhaps how to lose mostly...
Then, in the pole vault, Hingsen nearly succumbed to the decathlete's nightmare: disqualification for not making height. Before vaulting, he had thrown up twice, and on his first two tries at 14 ft. 9 in. he looked like a clumsy fledgling. On his third effort he cleared it by a whisker, but that was as high as he went. Under the point system, each inch in the vault is worth about 6 points, making it a disproportionately weighted event. So with Hingsen grounded, Thompson rose for the kill. When he cleared 16 ft. 4¾ in., he delightedly...
...might be said that next to freedom, there is nothing a Pole cherishes as much as his vodka. However, alcohol abuse has become one of the country's most serious problems. According to estimates by the Roman Catholic Church, 3 million Poles are drunk on any given day. A worried church and the outlawed Solidarity trade union have joined forces to revive a two-year-old campaign urging Poles to give up their excessive liquor consumption, at least for the month of August...
Over time, however, a few people noticed that communists and fascists had more than a few things in common. So the line went out, and the circle came in. Traveling too far in either direction led to the same unpalatable spot-totalitarianism. At the opposite pole, not surprisingly, was Western-style democracy...