KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Eastern Oregon University track and field athlete Robbie Haynie, has been named the NAIA Men’s National Field Athlete of the Week.

Haynie received the indoor award for the third time in his career, and was named outdoor national athlete of the week once last season.

The junior was named the conference indoor men’s field athlete of the week for second straight week Monday, his seventh conference weekly award in his two years at EOU.

The junior hit three personal records at the Boise State University Jackson’s Invitational. His pole vault and high jump marks were NAIA Auto-Marks.

Haynie raised his indoor pole vault school record from 17 feet, 2.75 inches to 17 feet, 6.5 inches (5.35 meters), and finish second behind a post-collegiate jumper.

Haynie’s vault equals his outdoor best from the 2011 NAIA National Championships.

It is the best NAIA mark so far this season.

The Nampa, Idaho native currently has the 11th best pole vault mark at any collegiate level.

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Alvarado Texas senior Dillon Bell made it official on Friday afternoon at Alvarado High School that he will be a pole vaulter for the United States Air Force Academy next year. Hopefully, he said, after he wins the state title in the pole vault this year.

Last year, Bell finished second in the state. This year, he’s ranked No. 4 in the national rankings and he said he has a good start and is ready for the season.

“I think the second-best in Class 3A right now is 15 feet,” he said. “I’m on the verge of jumping 17 feet so I feel pretty confident.”

Bell said he chose the Air Force Academy for a variety of reasons.

“I really feel super blessed that I have the opportunity to be an inter-collegiate athlete,” he said. “My parents said that anywhere I wanted to go, we’d get it paid for, but I really didn’t want to go anywhere to like the University of Texas or anywhere like that. I wanted to go to a place where I’d have some responsibility there and I could make sure and keep up with my grades.

“I’ll be trained and disciplined there and then I’ll have the opportunity to serve my country afterwards.”

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New York –A former Sweet Home High School athlete who nearly died after a college pole vaulting accident in 2007 is being treated for a serious spinal cord injury at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Keegan Burnett, 27, who now lives in Albany, is paralyzed from the waist down after a night skiing accident at Hoodoo Ski Area on Jan. 28. He is the son of Rick and Alice Burnett and a 2002 Sweet Home graduate.

“Keegan was skiing Saturday night with friends and the accident occurred when he tried to make a jump,” his mother said. “He said he made the jump twice before.”

Doctors told the Burnetts that Keegan “folded himself in half and landed on his head.”

“It completely blew out his T12 vertebrae and ruptured the C4 and C5 vertebrae,” his mother said. Continue reading →

Junior Keith Webber joined the 16-foot club, and freshman Lee Hardt came within an inch of breaking the seven-foot barrier. The jumping twosome — plus redshirt freshman Keli Dennehy’s Big Sky Conference-qualifying performance in the mile — highlighted the Montana track and field teams’ efforts Friday at the Vandal Indoor at Moscow, Idaho.

Montana had 24 athletes competing Friday at the selective meet. The Grizzlies’ full teams will compete at the Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center Saturday at the Idaho Indoor Open.

Webber cleared 16 feet for the first time in his career in the pole vault when he finished fourth Friday at a height of 16-1.75. He cleared his opening height of 15-7.75 on his first attempt Continue reading →

Poland’s top indoor meeting – the Pedro’s Cup in Bydgoszcz – will see a clash between history’s best two women pole vaulters on the indoor rankings on 8 February.

Russia’s world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva, whose indoor mark is 5.00m and who opened her season by clearing 4.70m in Volgograd on January 21, will come up against Great Britain’s Holly Bleasdale, who cleared 4.87m in the French town of Villeurbane on the same day.

Also in action in Bydgoszcz’s Lucznicka Hall are the top local stars 2009 World Championships gold medallist Anna Rogowska and her perennial rival Monika Pyrek. Russia’s 2010 European Athletics Championships winner Svetlana Feofanova is also in the field.

The men´s pole vault will see Poland’s 2011 world champion Pawel Wojciechowski, his country’s only medallist in Daegu, again battle with the Cuban silver medallist from Korea, Lazaro Borges.

Also in the field is Poland’s Lukasz Michalski, who was fourth in Daegu, Germany’s in-form Karsten Dilla and Russia’s 2008 Olympic Games silver medalist Yevgeniy Lukyanenko.

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LONDON: Much hysteria in Britain in the last year over its recruitment of foreign athletes to aid its Olympic campaign in London this year. Plastic Brits is the pejorative tag attached to the track, handball and wrestling athletes who have sought an easier route to Olympic selection – and generous financial support – than in their countries of birth.

Less excitement in places such as Kenya and Ethiopia whose athletes are being ‘stolen’ by the Gulf States and Turkey because they have loads of talent to spare, after all – and none at all in the United States where two of the three men’s spots in the marathon team went to former foreign nationals.

There is a sign, however, that attitudes to the easy transfer of national allegiance are hardening. Little Lithuania has thumbed its nose not just at its mighty neighbor Russia but at the very personage of its president, Dimitry Medvedev.

Medvedev personally gave a Russian passport to a Lithuanian Olympic medal contender in modern pentathlon, Donate Rimsaite. She had been in Russia only one year, and although it is claimed she had married a Russian his identity is not revealed and she continues to compete under her Lithuanian name. Continue reading →

Britain’s Holly Bleasdale, who is currently the world number one pole vaulter, hopes to continue her stunning form at the Aviva Grand Prix at Birmingham’s NIA on February 18 

The 20-year old smashed her own British indoor record and moved to second on the all-time world list with a clearance of 4.87metres in Lyon last month.

She said: ‘I’m still in shock about my performance in France but I’ve been working really hard. The field look a really competitive field, so hopefully it will be a good meet for me.’ Continue reading →

The Russian government announced Friday awards of $130,000 to Russian athletes who win a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

The government announced silver medalists would receive $82,000, while bronze would be worth $56,000.

The incentives are similar in size to those offered at the Vancouver Games in 2010, where Russia, a traditional winter sports powerhouse, delivered its most miserly medal haul in Olympic history, finishing 11th in the final standings with 3 gold, 5 silver and 7 bronze.

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OTTAWA, Kan. – Ottawa University’s track program has announced the signing of Jessica Folks for the upcoming 2013 season. She is from Clay Center, Kan. and attends Clay Center High School.

Folks is a four year letter winner in track, competing in the pole vault and 4×100. She also earned two letters in volleyball for Clay Center High School. She was an Honorable Mention All-Conference performer. Continue reading →

By LARRY MORITZ Salina Journal
Before she could focus on the final season of her record-setting career at Salina Central, Taylor Swanson wanted to get the next four years squared away.

She took an important step in that direction Thursday afternoon when the Mustang senior signed a letter of intent with the Arkansas State University women’s track and field program.

Swanson was recruited by the NCAA Division I school for her talents in the pole vault — an event in which she already owns the Central school record before her senior season begins this spring. Continue reading →

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – In one of its final tune-ups before the Northeast Conference Championships next weekend, the Monmouth University men’s and women’s track and field teams hosted “Moonlight at the MAC”, Wednesday night in the Multipurpose Activity Center.

MU swept the top three spots in the pole vault as Peter Matano (Wayne, N.J./Wayne Hills) took first with a season-best clearance of 4.57m (15′) followed by rookie Tom Jeffers (Bellmawr, N.J./Triton) who posted a mark of 4.42m (14′ 6″). Second-year Hawk Jordan Subai (Toms River, N.J./Toms River North) earned third with a jump of 4.27m (14′).

Rookie Lauren McDonald (Roseland, N.J./West Essex Regional) vaulted herself to a first place finish and a MU rookie record in the pole vault, clearing 3.35m (10′ 11.75″).

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