Brad Walker Q&A

[gh]

commercial alert! commercial alert!

Some interesting Q&A with vaulter Brad Walker on the front page now, as the reigning world champ talks about his Beijing bummer.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

[gh]

I'm surprised nobody commented on this (hopefully the IAAF, at least, will have taken notice) about the Beijing Q-round:

<<....the competition started way too late. Anybody who knows anything about the pole vault knows that we started with too many people at too late a time. [The qualifying was scheduled to begin at 8:40 p.m., with 38 vaulters competing, 19 comprising each of two groups].

Everybody had left the stadium, except for the people watching the pole vault. I was jumping in the prelims for the Olympics at midnight. The opening bar at the Games was 5.15 [16-10¾]—that’s almost what Isinbayeva can jump. It’s the biggest show in our sport, trying to find out who can jump the highest, and we’re starting at a height for a Div. I college meet...>

Goes to both the IAAF's total loss of control over qualifying standards and then compounding the problem by catering to the LCD when it comes to the prelims.

[polevaultpower]

I'm surprised nobody commented on this (hopefully the IAAF, at least, will have taken notice) about the Beijing Q-round:

Yeah right. Like they would listen to an athlete.