by Wendell Sloan

At Mt. Vernon High School in east Texas, I played football, basketball and track. Since my twin sister outweighed me until I was a 123-pound senior tailback, baseball or soccer would have been better bets — but we had neither as varsity sports.We didn’t have a track either, so track season was primarily for football players to stay in shape.I ran the mile and pole-vaulted. To practice for running events, we ran by a highway. One day an ambulance had to be summoned for a nose-tackle hit by a hay truck. The alfalfa bales hurt him more than the truck. At our district meet at East Texas State University, I finished sixth in the mile. I’ve always thought I might have finished higher, but never knew how far a mile was on an actual track. After the third lap, I broke into a victory trot. For pole-vaulting, our team used cane poles that carpet had been wrapped around. Until the district meet, I had never seen a fiberglass pole. While district rivals soared on their high-tech poles, my meet quickly ended on my first jump when my pole snapped. Lying flat on my back, the physical pain stung. But, not as much as the crack from a competitor. “I’ll bet he would have won a fishing competition,” he laughed.

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Cuban pole-vaulter Lazaro Borges, who came out of nowhere to win the silver medal at the recently concluded World Track and Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea is taking is new role seriously showing the world that it wasn’t a fluke by wining gold at the Rieti Grand Prix Meet held in Italy on Saturday.
Lazaro Borges brushed the sky with a jump of 5.81 meters to win the gold over Russian Dmitry Starodubtsev (5.61), who won silver, and over Pole Mateusz Didenkow, who took the bronze (5.61).
The Rieti Grand Prix is an annual athletics event at the Raul Guidobaldi Stadium in Rieti, Italy that takes place in late August or early September as part of the IAAF Grand Prix. It was first organized in 1971 based on an idea by Sandro Giovannelli, today’s member of the IAAF Competition Commission

 more http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/sports/2011-09-12/cuban-pole-vaulter-lazaro-borges-wins-gold-at-rieti-grand-prix