Coaching and Care of Athletes

THE POLE VAULT stands 6 ft. 2 ins., weighs just over I 2 stone, and pro.ved his all-· round ability in I936, when he made the highest score yet achieved by an English athlete in the Decathlon. The two Japanese athletes Nishida. and Oe, who have beaten I4 ft., are slightly built, weighing, I should say, less than I I stone and being rather under 6 ft. Outstanding types of tall, very slim vaulters were Keith S. Brown, ofYale, U.S.A., who made a world's record of 14ft. 5k ins. in I932, and Lawrence T. Bond, of Cambridge, England, who in I 930 became the first British athlete to beat I 2 ft. 6 ins. Comparative performances for various classes of championships held in England, in international match<~s, and at the Olympic Games are as follows : FT. INs. Public Schools 9 8! All universities IO 9 Individual counties IO 2 Northern District . I I 3 Midland District 9 IO Southern District I I 6 English A.A.A. I2 I International matches I2 4 Olympic Games I,g 91 Any discussion ofpermissible styles is likely to be controversial and kaleidoscopic. "The main thing is to keep an open mind," as Boyd Comstock remarked drily upon a certain historic occasion, when he changed his for the fifth time in a week, and got the results he was after. We have seen already that the old-time athletes of the English Lake District evolved a technique that was peculiarly their own, and which produced the best results in their own decade. We know that in America Van Houten used a method that approxi– mates closely to modern form, and that his style was lost sight of until Clapp rediscovered it. Points for coaches and athletes to keep in mind nowadays are, firstly, that several orthodox styles are being shown by athletes brought up in different schools of thought; secondly, that each of the orthodox_styles will need modification to suit the type require– ments of individual athletes; and, thirdly-and this is the most important clause of all-that the astounding advance in records which has brought two men to within one inch of clearing I 5 ft. may yet call for the evolution of a new technique almost entirely different from any that is in use at present. 1 At the Olympic Games in rgg6 ten vaulters tied for sixth place at 13 ft. 1 t ins. X 32I