When I sent the list of world championship vault qualifiers, I had to leave out some of the information about each provided in Mirko Jalava's lists. That's because most of us have our e-mail format set for 80-column lines and copying all of the information wraps each entry into a second line.
To fit the data on one line, I chose to delete the name of the meet where the mark was accomplished and the vaulter's previous best. I kept the vaulter's physical stats. If you've not bothered to look at those, you might be interested in these data of the biggest and smallest qualifiers: The biggest of the men is Viktor Chistiakov of Australia. He is 203 centimeters tall and weighs 90 kilos. The imperial conversions of those, rounded a bit, are 6'8" tall and 200 pounds. That is huge, for a vaulter. I've always thought of Sergey Bubka as THE big vaulter. In the prime of his vaulting years, Bubka was 184/80--just over six feet and 176 pounds. The smallest of the men is Christian Tamminga of Netherlands, at 172cm (5'7 3/4") and 67kg (147 pounds). Those stats are equally remarkable, in their own way. For a vaulter with those dimensions to reach high enough at take-off and put enough force into the pole to bend it for a clearance of 5.70m (18'8 1/4") must mean great runway speed (and a strong back). The largest of the women is Christine Adams of Germany at 182 centimeters and 72 kilos. That's barely short of Bubka's height and 158 pounds. Ths smallest of the women is Masumi Ono of Japan at 160cm (5'3") and 48kg (106 pounds). I would have guessed it to be world leader Svetlana Feofanova, who comes close, at 163/50--5'4" and 110 pounds.
