Pole Vault Help- Why Did Jenn Suhr Pass 4.70?

casualfan wrote:

Looking at the pole vault results Jenn Suhr, cleared her first height, then passed 4.70 which would have been enough to win gold with.

She then attempted 4.75 3 times and went out.

Was this a huge tactical blunder by Suhr or is that common for a vaulter as good as her to skip 4.70.

I also see no American men made the meet. What is going on?

Her best is over 5 meters. It is not unreasonable for her to pass 4.70 and expect to be able to do 4.75. She almost certainly expected some of her competitors to be able to jump 4.70 and to need to go higher to win.

The thing with pole vault is that there is a bit of randomness. Yes, part of what you train for is to improve consistency, but no matter how consistent you get, even the best have random misses three times in a row at heights they expect to be fairly easy. These misses happen with "bailed out" jumps or having a late plant, etc and end up being not even close to a clearance.

Skipping jumps is a way to reduce your risk of this happening. The very best vaulters might get it to where only maybe 30-40% of their jumps are bad jumps on their biggest (competition) poles, but that would be considered extremely good. Jenn is more like 40-50%. If she misses 40% of all jumps regardless of height, the more jumps you take, the more likely to have 3 in a row that are just bad jumps right from the start, resulting in the end of the competition.

Lets say she takes 8 jumps in a given meet. The chances of missing three in a row regardless of height (assuming big run, big grip, big pole: i.e. most likely chance of a bad jump on any given attempt at about 40%) is roughly 30% [(1-)^5]. So if she takes 8 jumps at every meet (about typical), 1 out of 3 competitions she will just blow it and fail to even put up a legitimate attempt at the top heights.

For this reason, it is crucial for vaulters to come in as high as possible. We come in at lower heights to give us a couple of "feel it out" jumps and get into jump mode. Ideally you want to jump maybe 2 bars at easier heights before hitting your more challenging heights. More than that is too many rolls of the dice, plus the more jumps you take, the more your bad percentage goes up, making it even more likely you mess up.

A person who has taken stats more recently than me should comment if that math makes sense. Even if I did the stats wrong, it illustrates the point, the numbers just might be a little different.

This is part of the reason for Renaud's consistency. He has a very high percentage of "good" jumps. Brad Walker is the opposite. I've always thought Brad could contend for the record. He's faster and stronger than Renaud, but he is so freakin' inconsistent, it is just ridiculous.

Oh and I forgot to mention, she almost certainly expected 4.75 or higher to be required to win. Off the top of my head, I believe top ten women this year have all gone 4.70 or higher. Jenn probably figures she is capable of 4.80-4.85 right now and that 4.75 should have been good.

So in hindsight, yes it looked like a tactical mistake. In reality though it was her going for broke for the gold and maybe being a little too overconfident. Probably the right call going in with that goal in mind.

You're not supposed to give good and nearly complete answers right away.

That doesn't make for a good thread.

Thanks, I was going to start a topic on the same thing. Was there anything that caused the winning vault to be so low?

Great post. Makes sense and now I'll understand the vault a lot better.

HardLoper wrote:

Thanks, I was going to start a topic on the same thing. Was there anything that caused the winning vault to be so low?

I'm not sure, other than just "one of those days." The world record holder was sitting this one out, Jenn (2nd all time) had an off day, the winner of usatf indoor nationals (mary saxer) was not there, a handful of other top names were out as well. 5 of the top 10 women from so far this season weren't at the meet. I think that combined with the top three at the meet not doing quite as well as expected resulted in a lower winning height than expected.

I don't believe there were any special circumstances, such as an unexpected delay in start time throwing off the vaulters or too loud of music, or anything like that.

4.70 took a long time to complete.

She may have been feeling really well after 4.65 but she 18 vaults after her clearance before she jumped again.

That should have read she had 18 vaults before she vaulted again. 14 for the folks who jumped 4.70 and the four misses ahead of her in the order before she went again at 4.75

If she is in an 8 jump competition, the probability of taking 3 bad ones in a row is:

0.4^3+0.6*0.4^3+0.6^2*0.4^3+0.6^3*0.4^3+0.6^4*0.4^3+0.6^5*0.4^3 = ~15%

Interestingly the probability of 3 bad ones in a row starts to level off around 15%. If she takes 18 jumps, her chances of 3 bad ones in a row are only 16%.

I think what's more important is the fatigue factor. As the jumps go on, the likelihood of a bad jump doesn't stay at 0.4. It goes up. Hence, you should still minimize the number of jumps done in the competition.

She didn't have 18 vaults. 18 vaults took place before she took her second vault.

The point about consistency being almost as important as speed and good form is a good one. However, thinking of 3 "bad" vaults in a row as causing a an exit from competition isn't completely correct.

a poor vault on your first attempt could cause might cause you to set your standard depth incorrectly or select too small a pole for attempt 2, in which case you could still have a great vault, but miss! So, having two good jumps in a row is what you really need. Heck, if you have 3 mediocre jumps in a row, you have a better chance clearing a bar than mediocre - good - mediocre.

I guess my point is that i agree that technical consistency is what something to strive for.

Doesn't explain why there were no American men there, is also what the OP asked.

US men used to be the leaders (sometime and maybe a longtime ago) in this event, and certainly competitive enough to provide at least one competitor for a world championship, when there is no outdoor meet this year.

Bubka retired years ago, Lavillanie (sp.) is now the best. Other than perhaps Walker (who is inconsistent according to the PVguy), who is there to take on the the best in the event? Is the event developing in America? Obviously (even though she had a bad day for her) Suhr is at the top of the sport, and there are women coming from the NCAA ranks (I think and hope) to push her, but then it is a relatively new event at the Olympic level for women so growth is to be expected.

I was mostly replying to PV guy's weird math about misses and bad jumps that wasn't completely coherent or correct. Most of his post was really good though.

I don't think Walker was considered inconsistent in his prime. The dude won a lot and not against weak competition.

Regarding USA men, I dont know why we don't have as much of a presence as before. Some theorize that it is because there isn't much money in it and I think that plays a big part. It is kind of strange that at the high school level, PV has been fantastic for the past decade - better than ever if you look at depth (though you could find some crazy performances at the top decades ago). I think we were just spoiled to have a few athletes stick around for a long time like Hysong, Mack, Hartwig, Miles.

I remember really thinking that Tommy Skipper was going to be the future of USA PV, but that didn't come true.

A PVaulter wrote:The world record holder was sitting this one out, Jenn (2nd all time) had an off day, the winner of usatf indoor nationals (mary saxer) was not there, a handful of other top names were out as well.

Saxer was there. She came in 8th.

She probably didn't want to get caught in the meat grinder.

Cooptastic wrote:

She probably didn't want to get caught in the meat grinder.

Nice! (And probably the most succinct explanation)

A PVaulter wrote:

Oh and I forgot to mention, she almost certainly expected 4.75 or higher to be required to win. Off the top of my head, I believe top ten women this year have all gone 4.70 or higher. Jenn probably figures she is capable of 4.80-4.85 right now and that 4.75 should have been good.

So in hindsight, yes it looked like a tactical mistake. In reality though it was her going for broke for the gold and maybe being a little too overconfident. Probably the right call going in with that goal in mind.

Yeah right

quote]wejo wrote:

Great post. Makes sense and now I'll understand the vault a lot better.[/quote]

As only one person has jumped over 4.75 this year and Suhr best is 4.73 this yr, I think the post sounded good while missing the main point.

Bring Back the 880 wrote:

Cooptastic wrote:

She probably didn't want to get caught in the meat grinder.

Nice! (And probably the most succinct explanation)

So for the benefit of the non-PV literate like me, when Rick Suhr was yelling about the meat grinder is that what he meant? - taking too many jumps at an intermediate height?