Bringing Track and Field from the Stadium to the Station
copyright 2018, Mark Cullen/trackerati.com, all rights reserved
Imagine arriving at Zurich's Central Station.
You don’t know that a pole
vault competition is taking place inside this cavernous structure.
You hear loud music and
rhythmic clapping.
Then – a huge roar from a
crowd you cannot yet see.
For me, you ask?
Well, no.
The roar was for Russia’s Timor
Morgunov, the most under-celebrated 6.0 meter (19'8.25") jumper in the history of the
event, who two weeks ago was lost in the shuffle of Mondo Duplantis’ epic,
history-making 6.05 meter European title.
The roar was for Shawnacy
Barber’s return to form to nab 2nd place with a season’s best 5.86.
The roar – twice – was for
Australia’s rising star Kurtis Marschall who set PBs at 5.81 and 5.86 to add an
impressive 6cm to his lifetime best. He outjumped some of the event’s most
notable names.
Poland’s energetic and dynamic
duo of Pawel Wojciechowski and Piotr Lisek finished 4th and 6th,
a central European sandwich around France’s vaulting legend, Renaud Lavillenie,
who has little experience with finishing 5th.
Observed outside the
competition area just before the event began, Lavillenie looked tired and
distracted. His left leg was bandaged with tape above and below his knee.
Uncharacteristically, on his first jump he knocked the bar off with his hand on
the way down.
The vaulters were energized
by the crowd and vice versa. Technique was remarkable on a number of jumps, and
push-offs were frequently textbook in their breathtaking quality.
A delightful unexpected
moment came in the narrow area between the crowd-control fence and the runway,
when a pair of feet appeared upside down above the fence and continued to walk
down the side of the runway. Lisek was stretching, getting ready, presumably, for
his patented pre-jump roar.
“This place is so awesome,” said
Wojciechowski. “It was great.”
“We love competition like
this when the crowd is closer to us and the music is loud,” said Lisek. “That’s
what we live for and we want to do it. We want to jump at the stadium and we want
to jump in an exhibition like today.”
Both are comfortable jumping
in what might be, for many, distracting conditions.
“We try to be so consistent
with our runways and our approach that we don’t look anywhere else,” said Wojciechowski,
the 2011 World Champion.
The Polish duo finished each
other’s sentences when describing how they maintain focus.
“We both focus on our jump –
nothing outside,” continued Lisek.
“(The runway) is our 40
meters and that’s what we need to do,” concluded Wojciechowski.
The Weltklasse is intentional
in bringing the sport from the stadium to the station, both literally and
figuratively. As tonight’s rousing response demonstrates, it is nothing but
successful. Combined with Tuesday’s seven-city “Training Mit Den Stars”, the
Weltklasse is setting a high standard for other communities, governing bodies,
and nations, even, to emulate.
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| 2016 Women's Pole Vault Zurich Central Station photo courtesy of Zurich Diamond League/Weltklasse |
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