 World Championships - Helsinki
Following competing in the pole vault qualifying round at the recent world championships in Helsinki, Steven Hooker sent back the following report:
As you may or may not be aware I failed to make the final.
I had imagined many possible outcomes for the qualifying rounds over the past few weeks, however nothing I imagined even remotely resembled how it all panned out on the day.
I'll write a brief summary of how the comp went from my perspective.
Warm Up -
Conditions were swirly but managable, I jumped 5.70m (this turned out to be the highest jump by any competitor for the day) and sat down and waited to enter the competition at 5.45m.
Comp part 1 -
1st attempt 5.45m - Wind was still, great jump, pole was too soft and hit the bar on the way up.
The Finnish jumper breaks the up rights on his second attempt. We wait for an hour for it to get fixed. During this time the other pool ccompletes the competition up to the height of 5.60m with only 5 athletes clearing that mark.
We are told that 5.60m will become the new automatic qualifying height. We get 10 minutes to warm up again and during this period I clear 5.60m.
Comp part 2 -
Almost as soon as we start jumping again the wind picks up and the heads of the jumpers in pool B drop.
2nd attempt 5.45m, bad wind, came down on the bar.
3rd Attempt 5.45m - start rundown, pole gets blown sideways, stop running. Jog back to the start of run up. 10 seconds to go and the words of Mathew Belford are running through my head 'life all comes down to a few short moments' wind was still bad but I had to go and with one of the ugliest jumps of my career I clear the bar.
1st attempt 5.60m - nearly get blown off the run way and miss the bar by the narrowest of margins.
2nd attempt 5.60m - bad wind, have big height on the bar but come down on it.
3rd attempt 5.60m - worst wind , take off but don't get in far enough to have a chance of jumping the bar.
1 year off hard work and it is over like that. I felt like I was jumping better than anyone else on the day and some circumstances that are out of my control significantly reduce the chances of getting through to the final. I obviously could have dealt with the conditions that eventuated better than I did but can't help but feel slightly cheated out of having a ligitimate shot at a world championship title.
I feel like I am in the best condition of my life and want to show people over here what I can do, so I have 3 more competitions before I head back down under at the start of September.
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We are delighted to announce that the Club was recently informed by the City of Whitehorse that we were successful in our application to the State Government for a grant to assist with funding construction of an access ramp for people with a disability to gain access to the new first floor section of the club rooms.
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