Men’s Pole Vault

Derek Miles, 3rd place, finals
On his health…
“The therapy has been really good. It has gotten me back to running on the runway which I wasn’t sure I could even do. You can always grind through some pain, but when it keeps getting worse you can’t do anything about it.”

Jeremy Scott, 2nd place, finals
On competition…
“You want to make the top three. I’ve been coming off some injuries. I wanted to squeak through and make the team.”
On his accomplishment…
“Right now I don’t know if I realize what is going on here quite yet. You have these goals set up. It’s really about the next four or five weeks.”
Who he shared the experience with…
“My wife and mom and dad were out here so it was great sharing this with them.”

Scott Roth, 3^rd place, Finals (No “A” Standard)
Post-competition reflection:
“I came into this meet knowing that I didn’t have the A standard, so it was disappointing to not have the standard and not make the team. But, at the same time, it was nice to get third place and run a victory lap around Hayward Field.”

Brad Walker, 1^st Place pole vault
On his thoughts of the competition…
“You got to place top 3. I’m not happy with the height, but I’m happy with the win, and the win is more important than the height.”
On his vaults in Beijing…
“I definitely wasn’t happy with what happened in Beijing. I can put it behind me in a healthy way and use it as motivation. I won’t completely forget about it, but it’ll be safely out of the way.”       more

Iowa –United States Olympian Jeremy Scott, a 1999 Norfolk High School graduate, is believed to be the tallest world class pole vaulter in history.The 6-foot-9 Scott was a three-sport letterman (football, basketball, track) at Norfolk and enrolled at Allegheny College to play football. A broken foot as a sophomore caused him to focus more on pole vaulting and he enrolled at one of National Track and Field Hall of Famer Earl Bell’s pole vault camps in the summer of 2001.In only the third meet of the 2002 season, Scott cleared 17 feet for the first time. The following week he went 17-7 and by the end of that indoor season he had cleared 18 feet and won an NCAA Division III national championship.Scott enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Arkansas for his final year of collegiate eligibility.His breakthrough season came in 2009 with his win at the USA Indoor Championships. That year, Scott also broke the 19-foot barrier for the first time, clearing 19-1 ¼.  more

EUGENE — Rick Baggett got his start pole vaulting in Pasco.
Now he is going to help other Tri-Cities youngsters in the sport.
The 1972 Pasco High graduate, who now runs the Willamette Striders Track Club in Oregon City, Ore., is working with Kennewick Parks and Recreation to bring a pole vault class to the Southridge Sports Complex this October. Baggett got his start as a pole vaulter in eighth grade at Stevens Middle School as a youngster, he then cleared a school record 15 feet, 9 3/4 inches at Pasco High in 1972, and went on to compete at Washington State. He qualified for an Olympic Trials, but didn’t compete because of injury.
On Sunday, he was in Eugene at the Olympic track and field trials watching one of his former students – Becky Holliday – take second place in the women’s pole vault, and earning an Olympic berth. The University of Oregon national champion cleared 14-11 to earn the berth.
It is the first Olympian he has coached.
“It was great. Really, really good,” Baggett said. “It’s a big deal.”
Holliday is just one of many lives that Baggett has touched throughout the years, helping students earn nearly $2 million in athletic scholarships by working with the Striders programs.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2012/06/29/2004493/track-and-field-ex-pasco-star.html#storylink=cpy

Clackamas Community College (CCC) alumna and world-class pole vaulter Becky Holliday is headed to London for the Summer Olympics. Holliday qualified for the U.S. Olympic team in pole vaulting competition over the weekend at the Olympic trials in Eugene, jumping 14 feet, 11 inches, and taking second place. Holliday is the national junior college record holder, and school record holder at both CCC and the University of Oregon, where she was named the NCAA champion in 2003. A native of Reno, Nev., Holliday was the state high school pole vault champion before arriving in Oregon on a track and field scholarship. At CCC, she was the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges pole vault champion in both 2000 and 2001. She’s been a pole vaulter now for 15 years. Holliday is not the first CCC alum to participate in the Olympics. Former CCC wrestler Matt Lindland won the silver medal in his weight class in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. CCC athlete Brian Abshire competed in steeplechase, and Lisa Ondicki was the silver medalist in the marathon in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.  more

Rockford, Illinois-Freeport native Mark Hollis won’t be headed to London for the Olympics. He came up just short Thursday evening in the pole vault at the Olympic Track & Field Trials in Oregon.
Hollis cleared 18 feet 4.5 inches which was the second best height of the night, but he lost out on tiebreakers to two other vaulters who also cleared that height Jeremy Scott and Derrick Miles.
American record holder Brad Walker had the best vault of the night 18 feet 7 1/4 inches  more

Jenn Suhr, Becky Holliday and Lacy Janson react to making the 2012 U.S. Olympic team in the women’s pole vault.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Former Arkansas pole vault standout Jeremy Scott has secured a spot on the 2012 Olympic team after placing second in competition at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. Scott qualified for his first Olympic Games after making first-attempt clearances at the first three heights and finishing the day with a final mark of 5.60m/18-4.5. Scott was the 2004 Southeastern Conference outdoor champion and All-American during his one season at Arkansas. Olympic competition in the event begins Aug. 8 in London  more

SIOUX FALLS (AP) — South Dakota pole vaulter Derek Miles has qualified for his third Olympics. The 39-year-old Tea resident and assistant track coach at the University of South Dakota finished fourth in the finals at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., on Thursday — one spot away from an advancing top-three spot. However, he qualified for the Summer Games in London because he had previously attained the Olympic “A’ standard height — in Germany about a year ago — while the third-place finisher had not. “This didn’t happen the way I would have wanted it to happen,” Miles told the Argus Leader newspaper. “But given the circumstances and the conditions, I’ll take it. “The conditions were really tricky,” he said. “You had rain, you had headwinds, some weird sidewinds — it was a real difficult meet.” Miles competed at the Olympics in Athens, Greece, in 2004, finishing seventh, and in the 2008 Games in Beijing, China, where he finished fourth, just missing a medal. The first round of the pole vault competition in London is Aug. 8, which will give Miles more time to recover from a recent Achilles injury. “I have a month where I can travel, find some people who can help me try to get my Achilles under control,” he said. “Then I’ll still have time to put in some quality training so that hopefully I’ll be able to go into it feeling like I can be very competitive.”  source

EUGENE, Ore. — Brad Walker won his fourth U.S. pole vault title, clearing 18 feet, 7 1/4 inches at the Olympic track trials Thursday night for a spot on the U.S. team for the London Games. Jeremy Scott was second at 18-4 1/.4, and Scott Roth third at the same height, but Roth does not have the Olympic “A standard this season of 18-9 1/4 required to compete in the Olympics. The third spot on the team went to fourth-place finisher Derek Miles, who finished fourth at the Beijing Games. Walker (University of Washington/University High) set the American record of 19-9 3/4 at the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in 2008. He finished third in the Olympic trials that year before no-heighting in Beijing.  more