OTTAWA – Top Canadian Paralympians Jon and Jason Dunkerley, both born blind, are facing a personal-injury lawsuit for crashing into another runner on a morning jog along Ottawa’s Rideau Canal in 2010.

The Dunkerley brothers are being sued for $350,000 in a statement of claim filed by jogger Mimi Lepage, who has had hip surgery since the crash on the morning of Jan. 24, 2010.

Her statement of claim says that she will need treatment and therapy for the rest of her life, citing tears of the hip, and injuries to an elbow and shoulder. None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The collision happened around 10 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2010 along the Rideau Canal jogging path.

In documents filed in Ottawa court on Dec. 22, 2011, Lepage says she was running south on the west side of the Rideau Canal when the Dunkerley brothers, their guide runners, and others in their running group crashed into her from behind. Continue reading →

Australia’s former world champion Dmitri Markov believes every pole vaulter experiences the doubts which have threatened Steve Hooker’s Olympic title defence.

Markov says Hooker has made the right decision to step away from Australia’s domestic season to try to regain his confidence before it’s too late to qualify for the London Games.

“The decision he’s done is good if he decides he’s not confident and if he is scared of something,” the 2001 world champion said.

“If he was still to compete, sometimes you can get worser and worser and worser because you’ve just lost confidence.

“In my opinion, he’s not scared, but he feels something’s not right. Continue reading →

In the sport of track and field the pole vault is probably one of the most technical events. With the aid of a carbon fiber pole, athletes sprint down a runway and propel their bodies into the air with the goal of clearing a bar suspended feet above the ground before plummeting to the soft mats below.

“It’s dangerous,” Nicole Hope, senior pole vaulter said. “It’s a thrill seeking event. It takes a lot of guts. It’s a fear factor.”

At Indiana State University, the women’s track and field team established over the past five years a reputation within the event’s realm. That tradition lives on with the 2011-12 class of women’s pole-vaulters which is led by Hope. Continue reading →

Illinois — As Lake Forest High School’s Carolina Carmichael NASCAR-ed her 5-foot-4 frame atop a runway in the pole-vault finals at last spring’s Class 3A girls state track and field meet, her staunchest fan had a tough time sitting still. The antsy fan, inside O’Brien Stadium in Charleston: Ofelia Carmichael, Carolina’s older sister.“I was squeezing my bleacher seat so hard,” recalled Ofelia, a 2011 LFHS graduate and standout freshman pole vaulter/hurdler at North Central College in Naperville.“My adrenaline was probably pumping as fast as Carolina’s was.” A blurry Carolina Carmichael, then a junior, planted her brand-new pole, soared and cleared 12-feet-3.

 A school-record height. And high enough for state runner-up honors, a year after she took third in the event. “I’m not sure if I screamed for joy on my way down,” said Carolina, who finished behind then-senior Taylor Kirby of Normal (12-6). “But I do know this, for sure: I was smiling and happy, so happy, as I was falling.” As happy as big sis was. “Carolina and I … We’ve got that sister thing going, that connection where we know what the other is thinking without having to say a word,” Ofelia said. “I went up to her (after the 12-3 at state), looked at her and then hugged her. “I was proud of her, incredibly happy for her.” Carolina Carmichael’s final LFHS track and field season is just around the corner (of a pole-vault landing pit). Clearing a state-record 13-3 in May would be nice. Continue reading →

MANHATTAN, N.Y. – Nelson Laskoski (Pomfret Center, Conn.) of the No. 9 nationally ranked Southern Connecticut State University men’s indoor track and field team finished first in the pole vault to help lead the charge for the Owls at the Manhattan/Fordham Tri-Meet held this evening. He managed to clear a height of 4.8 meters and achieve a NCAA provisional mark for Division II.

Russell Fallo (Redding, Conn.) claimed second in the long jump with a leap of 6.77 meters, while Jason Polakowski (Essex Jct. Vt.) finished fourth with a distance of 5.94 meters. Polakowski also finished third in the 60 hurdles with a time of 8.8.

The Owls will be back in action this weekend for the Valentine’s Invitational to be held in Boston, Mass. on Feb. 10-11.

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The 23rd Samsung Pole Vault Stars meeting in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk will live up to its name on Saturday as the top six men from last year’s World Championships will be present at the penultimate European Athletics Indoor Permit Meeting of 2012.

Among the 15 names in the men’s competition at the pole vault only spectacular are Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski and France’s Renaud Lavillenie, the gold and bronze medallists from Daegu.

It will be the first competition for Lavillenie, the reigning European champion indoor and outdoors, after fracturing his left hand in a training accident on 5 December. Continue reading →

The moment is embedded in Dan O’Brien’s legacy and seared in American sports history.

Two decathletes — O’Brien and his rival, Dave Johnson — were expected to compete for gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Reebok launched a $25 million ad campaign based on the question: “Who is the world’s greatest athlete — Dave or Dan?”

During the first day at the U.S. Olympic Trials, O’Brien, who won the world championship a year earlier, led the field with an astounding performance. Then, the unthinkable happened.

On his first attempt at the pole vault, O’Brien missed. On the second, he fell short. On the third try, he failed again. Continue reading →

Megan Clark, a senior pole vaulter for Columbus High who signed a national letter of intent Wednesday with Duke, will live in Columbus for about a year before she begins her college career, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell based on the more than 100 people who showed up in the auditorium at CHS.
“The support I’ve gotten from friends and teammates has been great, especially for someone who isn’t from here,” Clark, who is part of a military family who moved to Columbus from the West Point, N.Y., area last August, said.
Clark, ranked among the top high school vaulters in the country for the past two years and has cleared 13 feet as a personal best, talked Wednesday about discovering

the sport, moving to Columbus, the challenges of pole-vault training and why she’s not scared.

Why pole vault? Continue reading →

By Gary York

BLACKBURN Harriers’ pole vaulting sensation Holly Bleas-dale is determined to strike up a long-standing rivalry with Russian great Yelena Isinbayeva with London 2012 on the horizon.

The 20-year-old Chorley-born star competed directly against Isinbayeva for the first time this year at last night’s Pedro’s Cup indoor meeting at Bydgoszcz in Poland.

And the pair were the last ones standing from 10 competitors in a tense duel that saw both clear 4.68m, but then fail in three attempts to vault 4.80m.

Isinbayeva took the honours over her younger rival after managing to clear 4.68m on her second effort, compared to Bleasdale who succee-ded on her third attempt. Continue reading →

When pole vault champion Steve Hooker announced yesterday he would miss the Olympic selection trials due to a bad case of the “yips”, he joined a long and distinguished line of yippers.

The yips are not the same as “choking” or a run of shabby form. When athletes have the yips, they can become so anxious they are effectively paralysed: unable to produce the basic motions required to play their sport.

Golfer Ian Baker-Finch, tennis-player Anna Kournikova, cricketer Gavin Hamilton, rower Sally Robbins and dart-thrower Eric Bristow are all believed to have suffered from the yips.

Writing about his yips in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, Hooker said his “auto-pilot” had deserted him, leaving him too anxious to jump.

Enlarging his fear is the reality that a misjudged pole vault can be life-threatening.

“The confidence I require to stand at the end of the runway and then charge down, land my pole and soar almost six metres into the air has left me for the time being,” Hooker wrote.

Brett Ogle, a prodigiously talented Australian golfer whose career was crippled by the yips, knows how Hooker feels. Continue reading →