Nicholas Elliot Mossberg; Born 4-5-86 in Tucson, Ariz.; 5-10 170 lbs.  Best vault: 5.30m 17’4 1/4″ USATF Albuquerque 2/26/11  Selected for the 2011 Pan American Team….  Rincon High School, Tucson, Ariz.: Earned four varsity letters in track and field (three) and football (one). Named field event captain during in 2004, and earned team most valuable athlete honors following the 2003 and 2004 seasons. An all-city and all-region selection from 2002-2004. Won the 2004 region pole vault championship and placed second at the Arizona State Championships. University of Arizona — 2008: Redshirted junior season…2007: Took first place indoors at the TCR Race Productions

Jeremy Scott at 6’9″ is the world’s tallest pole vaulter. spikesmag.com invested in a stepladder to chat to the Arkansas-based US international who is coached by former Olympic medalist Earl Bell.
How did you get into athletics?
JS: At High School my sister was a pretty good hurdler and state champion for Nebraska. She was seven years older than me so watching her as a little kid have a bunch of success was something I wanted to pursue. I ended up doing hurdles and winning a state championship. I had three people who ended up being all state in the class – the coach said I might not have much future as a hurdler but maybe as a pole vaulter. So I went and tried it aged 16 one day, had fun, and found it was a thing I enjoyed doing.
When you first tried the pole vault was it an instant attraction?
JS: I was playing [American] football on the team [at Allegheny college in Pennsylvania] until one of the guys said you don’t have do morning work outs at 6am if you do a summer sport. I still wanted to play football but ended making the All American in my freshman year pole vaulting. I broke my foot pretty early on the football season and from then on it was hard to make the cuts. So that next year I decided to go with the pole vault. Football was my first love but pole vault is what I have the most fun with.

read more http://www.spikesmag.com/features/jeremyscotttheworldstallestpolevaulter.aspx

Clemson University President Jim Barker was inducted into his high school’s Athletic Hall of Fame on Thursday evening in Kingsport, TN. Barker was a track athlete, competing in the pole vault at Dobyns-Bennett High School. He continued his career in that event as a student-athlete at Clemson in the late 1960s.

“This is a special moment for me,” Barker said in an article in the Kingsport Times News. “I think the committee made a serious mistake in selecting me, but I’m not giving it back.”

Barker joins a long list of well known athletes to be honored by Dobyns-Bennett High School. Former Georgia Tech Head Football Coach Bobby Dodd is an alumnus of the school and a member of its Hall of Fame. Among the inductees with Barker on Thursday night was former Wake Forest basketball player Skip Brown.

Dobyns-Bennett High School is also the alma mater of current Clemson starting defensive back Coty Sensabaugh, who had the key interception in the final moments of Clemson’s win over Auburn on September 17

Worldwide Olympic partner Coca-Cola have today unveiled their new global campaign for the London 2012 Games which will be titled “Move to the Beat” and led by Grammy award-winning music producer Mark Ronson.

The aim of the campaign is to bring teenagers closer to the Olympics and sport in general by harnessing teenager’s passion for music and the campaign will see Ronson, alongside chart-topping vocalist Katy B, create a new song by fusing together the sounds of Olympic sport.

The 36-year-old Ronson, who was born in Notting Hill, travelled the world to gain inspiration for the song by meeting young athletes and recording the sound of them competing to provide the beat for the tune.

The song is set to be released as a worldwide single next year and will provide the soundtrack for television commercials, mobile and digital platforms and Coca-Cola events during the 2012 Olympics.

read more http://www.insidethegames.biz/olympics/summer-olympics/2012/14420-coca-cola-launch-london-2012-campaign-led-by-mark-ronson

The 15th edition of the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics will be held in March 9-11, 2012 at the Ataköy Athletics Arena in Istanbul, Turkey.

What: 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships

Where: Ataköy Athletics Arena in Istanbul, Turkey

When: 9th to 11th March, 2012

Qualification

Preliminary Entry Deadline: 9 December 2011 (Midnight Monaco time)

Final Entry Deadline: 27 February 2012 (Midnight Monaco time)

Men’s Pole Vault 5.72m

Women’s Pole Vault 4.52m

for more http://www.singaporeathletics.org.sg/2012-iaaf-world-indoor-championships

Taipei, Sept. 30 (CNA) Physical education major Hsieh Chia-han on Friday set a new Taiwanese record in the pole vault that had stood for 21 years, clearing a height of 5.31 meters (17-4).

Hsieh, a student at National Taiwan College of Physical Education, broke the record by 1 centimeter at a national-level track and field meet for college students.

He started by successfully clearing a height of 4.90 m and clinched victory in the event when he hit a vault of 5.11 m. After clearing 5.22 m on his third and final try, he moved the bar to 5.31 m and set the record on his second try.

“I’m really glad. I’ve wanted to break the record for at least two years,” Hsieh said with excitement after the tournament.

The previous record of 5.30 m was set by former decathlete Lee Fu-en in 1990 and represented Taiwan’s sixth longest-standing track and field mark.

read more http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201109300043

By Lee Journey—Kansas — Have you every felt like it was going to take an eternity for something to get here? That’s how I felt waiting for track season to start.

It’s my first year doing sports and I was really looking forward to track season. Although, there are lots of events the one I was looking forward to the most was pole vault.

At first, I thought pole vault was going to be scary being flung threw the air. Still when my track coaches asked me if I wanted to pole vault, I said yes not knowing how much work it would take.

For about the first week, I could barely get two feet off the ground. Even though it was hard, I kept working. Our coach told us if we want to pole vault at the first track meet we need to be able to clear opening height. Even though I was close, I still had some work to do.

Although, my coach thought I could do it, and entered me in.

read more http://www.usd297.org/pages/uploaded_files/jlee-journey%20pole%20volt.pdf

Event: Pole Vault
Height: 6-9
Weight: 200
PR: 5.82m/19-1.25 (2009)
Born: May 1, 1981
Current Residence: Brookland, Arkansas
High School: Norfolk (Neb.) HS ‘99
College: Allegheny County ’03; Arkansas ‘04
Coach: Earl Bell
Agent: Jeff Hartwig
Club: Nike
Website: www.jscott615.com

Career Highlights: 2009 USA Indoor champion; Runner-up at 2009 & 2003 USA Indoor Champs; Runner-up at 2011 and 2010 USA Outdoor Champs; 2002 NCAA D-III national indoor & outdoor champion

Scott qualified for his second World Outdoor team, with a runner-up finish at the 2011 USA Outdoor Championship. Scott continued his positive momentum from his outstanding 2009 season by finishing fourth at the 2010 USA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, and by posting the highest outdoor clearance by an American that year of 5.82m/19-1 from his May 18 win in Jonesboro, Ark. Believed to be the tallest world class pole vaulter in history, Scott, who stands 6 feet 9 inches tall, made the World Outdoor Championships team for Berlin with his second place finish at the 2009 USA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore. His breakthrough 2009 season got off to a great start with his win at the USA Indoor Championships in Boston, and he broke the 19-foot barrier for the first time in his career with his winning clearance June 14 in Jonesboro, Ark., when he cleared 5.82m/19-1.25

rread more http://www.usatf.org/Athletes/Bios/Scott_Jeremy.asp

August 28th, day 2 of the IAAF WC decathlon, it was a little after 5 o’clock on a pleasant Daegu afternoon and I had a PR in my pocket and the first spark of the day. I had never been more confident that I would throw big than that day. i always approach the javelin with the same mindset, “go somewhere else in your mind and throw like you want to hurt yourself.” In fact, those were the last words I told mario, “I’m going to try to hurt myself”. That mentality has enabled me to consistently step up and PR when I need to. It also, put some serious stress on my body.

That’s the trick. You can’t be scared of hurting or you’ll never throw far. To hit a good jav, you have to put your body in some compromising positions and put some serious energy behind it.

So I’ve got my PR in my pocket on my first throw of the year from a full approach- and it was a messed up approach at that!… So now what? “Let’s fix the approach and really put some heat on it!” So we fixed it and missed the strike but it still went promisingly far. So I walk to that back of the runway and talk it over with Mario and we KNOW that if we do this 3rd round throw right, then we’ll have a 72m throw and something special. As I walk to the back of the runway, I’m both exhausted and so full of adrenaline that I thought my heart would explode and I may pee on myself during that explosion. Hard to describe, but imagine you’re standing underneath the colosseum in ancient Rome and you’re next in line to fight for your life. Oh, and you haven’t slept in two days!

read more  http://www.flotrack.org/blog/38611-Life-since-the-World-Championships

September 28 – The Jewish Cultural Centre in Rockland, New York, has unveiled a sculpture to honour the 11 Israelis who were murdered by terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic Village and entered rooms where the Israeli team were staying, before fighting broke out with athletes and coaches defending the squad, during which weightlifter Yossef Romano and coach Moshe Weinberg were murdered.

Another nine athletes – Yossef Gutfreund, Amitzur Shapira, Kehat Shorr, Andre Spitzer, Jacov Springer, Eliezer Halfin, Mark Slavin, David Berger, and Ze’ev Friedman – were held hostage by the Black September terrorists before being murdered despite numerous attempts to negotiate their safe release

read more  http://www.insidethegames.biz/latest/14401-munich-massacre-memorial-unveiled-in-new-york