Word: vaulter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harvard pole vaulting corps--Dave Randall, Dolf Berle and Gus Spanos--are a small and diverse group. Each vaulter started for a different reason and is at a different point in his vaulting career. Yet they have two things in common: a slightly reckless streak and a love for the excitement pole vaulting provides...
Danger is an integral part of vaulting and the possibility of injury is always in the back of a vaulter's mind. There are over 100 different steps involved in a single vault, and a slip up in any one of these motions could spell disaster. The greatest threat to the vaulter is that be won't quite make it over the bar and will return from whence he came, as they say. The floor on which he makes his approach is hard and there are no pads to cushion his fall...
Pole breaking provides another worry. "When I was a sophomore in high school, at a California Invitational meet, one vaulter was in mid-air and upside down when his pole broke. The kid landed on his head right on the concrete where you place your pole," Spanos recalled...
...Catch-22 is that in order to vault to greater heights you must take a chance--move your hand a bit lower on the pole, or speed up your approach--but too much doring can be fatal. It's that dynamic tension of risk and cautiousness that every vaulter strives...
...over at the pole vault, freshman Gus Spanos racked up the first varsity victory of his career. The event would normally have been forced indoors by the rain, but Yale's Coxe Cage is under renovation. Undaunted, Harvard vaulter Dave Randle took second place, leaving top honors to Spanos...