Timeline for Why is there a gap in pole-vault records starting in 1994 and resuming as of 2020?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 8, 2023 at 17:05 | comment | added | alamoot | Bubka had an overwhelming dominance at the time and seemingly pushed the record at will. The reason his overall addition to the record over that time period may not look that impressive is his world record bonus deal with Nike. He got paid a bonus for breaking the world record. So to financially maximize his earnings he only pushed it 1 or 2cm at a time almost all the time. Had the world record bonus wasn't there, it's believed Bubka would've made that record progression in much faster time. | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 16:04 | comment | added | chepner | Bubka also didn't seem to push the record any harder than previous record holders. While he almost singlehandedly pushed the record from 19 1 1/2 to 20 1 1/4, he did so over a 10-year period that matched the previous 10 years it took for a similar 1-foot increase in the record. | |
| Sep 5, 2022 at 16:39 | comment | added | alamoot | It is still important to mention the pole went through a number of technological changes before settling on fiber glass. You are assuming the the OP and any reader already knows that the pole material changes a lot from the 50s (explicitly mentioned by OP) till the records stopped moving in the 90s. | |
| Sep 4, 2022 at 3:34 | comment | added | Nij♦ | This answer is not very helpful. The first paragraph restates the unmet expectation that the question is trying to recover from. It is clear that technology hasn't been the reason, since pole tech has not been through a significant change since fibre glass poles came in, it suggests we should expect the total opposite of what happened. If the last paragraph is to imply the 1994 record was just due to someone freakishly good and special, requiring an even more special athlete to overcome it, it could do so much more clearly. | |
| Sep 4, 2022 at 3:07 | history | answered | alamoot | CC BY-SA 4.0 |