A question posted yesterday on PoleVaultPower asked: “who does everyone
say the strongest vaulting country, men and women, is in the world. The
US isnt bad but then there's Russia, Australia, anyones thoughts on
this?”
Members of the t-and-f mailing list might be interested in my response:
“Everyone” certainly will not agree on an answer, because there are
several questions hiding in this. For example, is the question which
country has “the best” male vaulters, which has the best female
vaulters, or the best combination of male and female vaulters? Is the
question which country has the male and female vaulter at the top of
the world lists? With the greatest number of top-ten rankings? The
greatest number of male vaulters with marks over 5.70, of female
vaulters over 4.50?
Clearly, the answer is going to depend on which, if any, of these
questions is asked. Here, though, are some data that may help with a
few questions of the sort. They are taken from Mirko Jalava’s 2006
world outdoor deep lists at <www.tilastopaja.net>, which show 670 men’s
seasonal bests above 5.00 meters and 752 women’s seasonal bests above
3.60 meters.
In the men’s list, USA had the greatest number of vaulters (22) in the
top 100, with Brad Walker ranking #1 at 6.00 meters. Germany had the
next greatest number (14) in the top 100, with Tim Lobinger ranking #4
at 5.90 meters.
The top five countries, in number of vaulters in the world top 100 were:
United States (22)
#1 Brad Walker 6.00
#8 Toby Stevenson 5.82
#11 Russ Buller 5.80
Germany (14)
#4 Tim Lobinger 5.90
#5 Danny Ecker 5.86
#6 Björn Otto 5.85
Russia (8)
#39 Sergey Kucheryanu 5.65
#44 Dmitriy Starodubtsev 5.61
#48 Yevgeniy Lubjanenko 5.60
France (6)
#9 Romaine Mesnil 5.81
#38 Vincent Favretto 5.65
#42 Damiel Dossevi 5.62
Ukraine (5)
#21 Vladyslav Revenko 5.75
#29 Maksym Mazuryk 5.70
#30 Denys Yurchenko 5.70
It’s immediately obvious that number ranked in the top 100 isn’t a very
complete answer to which country has the best vaulters, when it’s noted
that Australia doesn’t make the top five of the men’s compilation. It’s
a little hard to justify ranking Russia, with top vaulters at #39,44,48
above Australia, with vaulters at #2,3,28.
Australia (4)
#2 Steve Hooker 5.96
#3 Paul Burgess 5.92
#28 Dmitri Markov 5.70
Similar stats for women in the top 100 for the 2006 outdoor season,
with Poland and France tying for fifth place in numbers of athletes so
ranked:
United States (18)
#6 Jenn Stuczynski 4.66
#12 Chelsea Johnson 4.60
#14 Lacy Janson 4.58
Germany (12)
#9 Nastja Ryjikh 4.63
#11 Yvonne Buschbaum 4.62
#16 Silke Spiegelburg 4.56
Russia (8)
#1 Yelena Isinbayeva 4.91
#5 Svetlana Feofanova 4.70
#8 Tatyana Polnova 4.65
Australia (7)
#10 Kym Howe 4.62
#15 Tatiana Grigorieva 4.58
#42 Alana Boyd 4.40
Poland (6)
#2 Monika Pyrek 4.75
France (6)
#4 Vanessa Boslak 4.70
Again, it’s difficult to see that this would be an acceptable way of
answering the question of “best country for vaulting,” with Russia
having the top vaulter and three top-10 rankings, but trailing USA and
GER overall.
Next—easier—question?
