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Show by Jim Murray Munirirsiy im SpDuit Will Americans regain pole position in LA? What would you say is the most American of Olympic sports? The hundred? Pshaw! We haven't won that since 1968. Englishmen, South Africans, even Russians and Trinidadians, have beaten us out of that. Maybe, the 200? Uh-uh. Haven't won that since 1968. Canadians have won it, Russians and Jamaicans. The mile? Are you kidding? We haven't won that since 1908, if you can believe it. No, the most American Olympic sport, cer-tifiably, cer-tifiably, is the pole vault. We've gotten clobbered clob-bered in the hurdles, the half mile, quarter mile and we win the long-distance runs so infrequently in-frequently they make a movie about it when we do. But the pole vault was always as American as iced tea, the state fair. We never lost the thing till 1972, and then it took a midnight raid on vaulter Bob Seagren's poles to turn the event over to a German. The pole vault was always a nice solid red, white and blue. Oh, say, can you see a Yank going over at 19 feet? The pole vaulters were always playing Our Song. It didn't matter whether the pole was made of birch bark, bamboo, aluminum or fiberglass. Whether the landing pit was sand, sawdust, foam rubber or grass. Americans won it. Usually, they had to beat their own teammates to do it. Russians, Europeans in general, West Indians, Canadians, Orientals were not a problem. In 1952 America's Bob Richards had to beat out America's Don Laz to win it. In '56, Richards had to beat out America's Bob Gutowski. In '60, Don Bragg had to hold off America's Ron Morris. And so on. What has happened? Who took down Old Glory? Oh, say, why can't you see our banner still wave? The Germans took away Seagren's poles at the 11th hour in Munich and made him jump on some hand-me-down models, which was like taking away A.J. Foyt's car on the night before Indy and putting put-ting him in a stock Edsel. And Jimmy Carter rapped us out of the Moscow vault pit. But the vault has become, fittingly, a Pole vault since Munich, and this year, the French and the Russians have become the darlings of the runways. Only five vaulters in the world have gone over 19 feet, two Frenchmen, two Russians and America's Billy Olson. Seven times, Billy Olson set a world indoor record in the past year, only to have the Russian, Sergei Bubka, take it away from him with a leap of 19-0 :)4 in Lithuania last month. Why have the Europeans come with such a rush in America's Event? "Well, first, they're getting better equipment," equip-ment," Billy Olson believes. "The poles are still made in this country but the manufacturers manufac-turers are tailoring them to the Europeans' needs. Used to be, you'd see these guys come over here with just one pole, ill-suited to their purpose and they were at a distinct disadvantage. disad-vantage. "Second, they now have national coaches and national pole-vault centers. The French have a facility you would drool over. We just still kind of go out and find an empty lot and a crossbar and jump." The pole has become almost as big a star in the event as the vaulter. Olson: "I got this big (16-5) yellow pole. It's pre-bent and it looks like the world's biggest banana." The Europeans' poles are even bigger. "They grip theirs at 16-5. So they must be 16-8 or more. I have lengthened my grip area to 16 feet, but they push off almost at the tip." The event has become a sort of strength contest. The fiberglass poles weigh almost six pounds and they are carried down a runway run-way at top speed. Olson: "My run-up is about 150 feet and, from start to plant, the faster you go, the higher you go. But you will need a lot of strength to carry that banana all those times up that runway and still have strength to push off at the top. The Europeans mean to make up in strength and conditioning what they lack in speed." Europeans basically believe they can excel in any sport which can be engineered. It is a sardonic salute to America's haphazard approach ap-proach to the Games "If you want to do it, do it yourself. Here's the pole and there's the pit. Good Luck." Says Olson: "It's a state effort over there." Billy Olson will be going against his nemesis, Bubka, as well as the silver medalist from the Moscow Olympics, Kon-stantin Kon-stantin Volkov, at the TimesUnited Airlines Indoor Games Friday Feb. 10 at the Los Angeles Forum. It should provide a clue to what to expect at the Coliseum this summer. Will a nation which won 16 out of 16 Olympics come back to win its first since Mexico City in 1968? Billy Olson sees no reason why not. "It'll be our field and our country and our crowd," he notes. Besides, it's our event. (c) 1984, Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate |