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TRACK & FIELD INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: THE DEADLY COVER-UPS!
The vaulting pole in the next image below is a 1980s predecessor of the deadly "UCS Spirit" poles that were applied by my son and were the same poles MISused by catastrophically paralyzed Austrian female vaulter, Kira Grunberg. In 2014, I discovered a 07/14/89 SUPREME COURT OF NEBRASKA case involving the death of a high school pole vaulter in 1983. My conversations with the victim's father were deeply moving, to say the least. While still a teenager, Darin E. Ohnstad was senselessly killed using a vaulting pole as that pictured below. Darin's vibrant young life perished due to a completely AVOIDABLE tragedy during, what should have been, a harmless event at a high school track meet. Darin's "SPIRIT" alone is my resolute motivation to continue fighting this battle opposing the LETHAL CRIMINALS promoting "traditional" pole vault absurdity that ruthlessly extinguished Darin's earthly light and forever altered the life of Kira Grunberg while disgusting "insider" miscreants arrogantly revel flaunting their "privileged" pompous impunity.
THIS IS A DEATHLIST OF ONLY 24 PREVENTABLE FATALITIES I WAS ABLE TO VERIFY. THERE ARE MANY, MANY MORE. MOST OF THESE YOUNG DEATHS ARE THE ABSOLUTE AVOIDABLE CONSEQUENCE OF CRIMINAL GROSS NEGLIGENCE!
NOTE: The above list contains only MALES as FEMALE POLE VAULT CATASTROPHES are an ongoing shrouded MYSTERY.
Fourteen (14) names of young men appear on the fatality list above who were killed during the time period in which UCS and UCS MINIONS within the "pole vault community" were well aware of our 1992 life-saving documented evidence. The next three images display my own teenage son, in 1991, suffering the consequences of naively attempting exactly the same DEADLY "TRADITIONAL" ABSURDITY that had already abruptly ended Darin Ohnstad's life eight years prior and devastatingly altered Kira Grunberg's life 24 years later. The fourth image below documents the introduction of "Horizontal Flexed Pole Rotation" in 1992.
Within 12 MONTHS, we accomplished MORE to IMPROVE this event than “TRADITIONAL” pole vault “EXPERTS” have throughout entire careers!
Vaulting pole manufacturers are FULLY AWARE that when the more difficult to bend LOWER portion of any flexible "competition" vaulting pole is "PUSHED" forward by the vaulter, IF THE POLE DOES NOT BREAK, the ill-advised STRESS on the most heavily REINFORCED section of the pole will REACT with an EQUAL and IMMEDIATE violent push-back AGAINST the vaulter while he or she is still above the runway and plant box. The first two images below display the all too common "traditional" accepted consequence, which brainwashed Track & Field Industrial Complex affiliates laughingly describe as, coming up "SHORT."
CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE? YES, THE EVIDENCE IS ABUNDANT!
David Cox, is shown below left successfully "BULL-PUSHING" a UCS Spirit vaulting pole. Note that Cox is above the runway and plant box throughout his entire "diagonal" ascent to the crossbar. Cox was America's 1991 top high school vaulter, coached by well connected UCS insider, Bob Fraley, Fresno State University. Cox and Fraley religiously followed the same advice of UCS Pole Vault Summit guest speaker, Dave Johnson, quoted below center. Below right, decades later, unsuccessfully applying the same "BULL-PUSH" on a UCS Spirit pole as Fraley's student, is a European top vaulter BREAKING an identical UCS Spirit vaulting pole.
Clearly obvious in the slow motion images above, you can see the instant that "traditional" pole vaulters are "jerked" violently backwards above the runway. Today, these deadly teachings are still being purposely promoted by lethal track & field industrial complex "pain-profiteers." Further proving my point, linked at the end of this paragraph, is a lethal "Popular Science" article packed with deadly propaganda being regurgitated by "traditional" pole vault expert, Peter McGinnis, professor of kinesiology, reiterating his "expert" opinion that the "most important" aspect of the event is "speed of the vaulter." This absurd article displays "traditional" pole vault illustrations (examples shown below) promoting archaic lethal MISinformation. The deadly McGinnis article is subtitled "A fast run and a carbon-fiber pole create 20 feet of vertical"! "Professor" Peter McGinnis is a negligent buffoon.
You can also see in the examples below, HOW these lethal pole vault poles become even more deadly when gullible athletes, who've been INSTRUCTED to run full-speed approaches, are further purposely encouraged by EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS to GRIP LOWER than the MANUFACTURERS' MAXIMUM RECOMMENDED GRIP HEIGHT on their deadly vaulting poles!
This is simply additional "criminal negligence" for which equipment manufacturers and "TRADITIONAL" coaches remain entirely culpable. Since the LOWER portions of flexible "competition" poles are HARDER to bend than their UPPER portions, deadly "traditional" pole vault teachings automatically place lethal unnecessary STRESS on the MOST RESISTANT portions of flexible "competition" poles that vaulters are being negligently taught to "BULL-PUSH" precariously forward! In the image below, you can see my own son applying the deadly "BULL-PUSH" prior to creating our safer AIR STRIKE pole vault methods.
Looking at our animated examples below, you will see that our unrestricted flexible rod bends uniformly and very easily. "Uniform diameter" flexible poles, such as the FiberSport "MAXIMA" brand poles we purchased to assist us with attaining safer TRAINING methods in the early 1990s, BEND based exactly on the same principles as the fiberglass rod in the first image displayed below. When we encase a portion of the same fiberglass rod inside a section of PVC pipe, as shown in the second image next, the rod's flexion inside the reinforced section becomes absolutely limited. To bend the portion of fiberglass rod inside the PVC pipe is now EXTREMELY DIFFICULT while ONLY the NON-reinforced section of flexible fiberglass rod outside the PVC pipe remains EASY to bend.
Based on the same physics principles, STRONGER reinforced sections of real-life flexible "competition" vaulting poles are purposely FACTORY DESIGNED TO RESIST FLEXING while the WEAKER sections of the poles FLEX EASIER. In other words, NON-uniform diameter flexible "competition" vaulting poles are DESIGNED to bend NON-UNIFORMLY with the LOWER portions much MORE resistant to bending than the UPPER portions.
As you can see in our 1992 video evidence, 65% CHORD IS AMPLE pole-bend on CORRECTLY flexed "competition" poles. Ironically, the bottom tips of real-life vaulting poles remain inside plant boxes until the vaulter releases the pole, by fluke, NOT by intent. "SAIL" pieces, which are inserted for other purposes, actually cause the lower (stronger) reinforced sections of flexible "competition" vaulting poles to NOT over-bend. That is why, when COCKED PROPERLY, flexible "competition" poles will ALWAYS appear similar to an inverted capitol letter "J," as illustrated in our animated image of flexible fiberglass rod inside PVC pipe and the real-life 1992 video of Chris Toledo correctly "cocking" our "UCS Spirit" flexible "competition" vaulting pole.
In order to emulate REAL-LIFE vaulting pole ABUSE, a TREMENDOUS amount of ENERGY was exerted to achieve the deformed BEND in the PVC pipe shown below. (If you don't believe me, try it yourself sometime.) Since it is VERY difficult to distort a PVC pipe to bend this way, the amount of wasted energy required to force a real-life flexible "competition" pole to FLEX INCORRECTLY is both extraordinary and deadly. Can you imagine the mammoth amount of misguided energy it takes to BREAK an improperly flexed "competition" vaulting pole?
Flexible "competition" vaulting poles are FACTORY DESIGNED TO NEVER be bent as depicted in the images displayed here. Yet, in spite of this physics reality, negligent vaulting pole manufacturers and irresponsible "coaches" relentlessly continue encouraging vaulters to apply these lethal "traditional" pole vault methods. Shown below, applying "traditional" fatal pole-bend, is David Cox. Cox was mentored by Coach Bob Fraley, founder of the original UCS Pole Vault Summit in 1989, at Fresno State University that catapulted UCS Spirit vaulting pole sales.
Lethal "traditional" vaulting methods taught by Fresno State University's Coach Bob Fraley, mirrored the misguided 1980s methods of Billy Olson, mentored by Coach Don Hood at Abilene Christian University in Texas. In the 1980s, Billy was Sergei Bubka's nemesis while Billy's success triggered Coach Don Hood's world-wide recognition. These vaulters were admired as "DAREDEVILS" with exceptional running speed! This same abject stupidity continues being propagated for profit today as a new generation of criminally negligent coaches follow in the footsteps of the past. For example, the following quote is by Minnesota "millennial" pole vault coach and UCS Spirit dearest, Shawn Michael Francis:
"You have to hit it with everything you've got and, if you really do break a pole, and it, and you break it a good way, you'll land in the pit anyways. So, don't be afraid to break the pole, that just means you're super awesome and you probably need the next stick anyways. So, in, in reality, I guess I look at a pole-break as a graduation, ah, to being even more awesome!" (Shawn Francis-YouTube-F8J4ytXaVu0)
YES, I IDENTIFY THE ABOVE AS ILLICIT ABJECT COACHING STUPIDITY. PLEASE, USE YOUR OWN COMMON SENSE.
Why do USATF, IAAF, UCS, AJSM, ASTM, NHSF and other negligent pole vault "experts" professing their concerns for the "safety" of athletes, not only condone lethal "traditional" philosophies carelessly spread by coaches like Shawn Michael Francis, they also stupidly PROMOTE the same deadly "traditional" pole vault teachings themselves? What do you think will happen when foolish "traditional" concepts are eliminated from existence and the vaulter's energy could finally be intelligently applied using safer AIR STRIKE pole vault methods to replace CORRUPT "traditional" indiscretions?
In 1994, I recorded one of the world's greatest athletes pole vaulting during the USA/Germany decathlon in San Luis Obispo, California. The coach of the Germans, to whom I had spoken before the meet, did not have any interest in sharing a dialogue with me. The video images displayed here expose the consequences paid by an outstanding, but very naive, world class athlete, Norbert Demmel, who is the ultimate victim of his "elite" German coach's close-minded ignorant propagation of negligent "traditional" pole vault teachings. Through no fault of his own, Norbert's tremendous athletic potential was foolishly squandered by athletic "Establishment" stupidity decades ago.
You can see that Demmel is very high off the ground when the pole tip "strikes" but his pole vault execution FAILS miserably without the application of Air Strike's "horizontal flexed pole rotation" principles. Along with his litany of other lethal errors, this great athlete's pole vault efforts are even further thwarted by his low grip on the "UCS Spirit" flexible "competition" pole. Lethal recoil reaction becomes exponentially more hazardous to vaulters gripping flexible "competition" poles LOWER than the "manufacturer's recommended maximum grip position" because lowering the grip further DECREASES the bend area of the pole. The physical facts displayed so explicitly in the animated images above are irrefutable.
This vital WARNING to you cannot be repeated often enough: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GRIP A FLEXIBLE "COMPETITION" VAULTING POLE LOWER THAN THE MANUFACTURER'S MAXIMUM RECOMMENDED GRIP HEIGHT!!! NOT EVEN WHEN THE MANUFACTURER'S NEGLIGENT INSTRUCTIONS TELL YOU TO!
Flexible "competition" vaulting poles have become so incredibly dangerous primarily because culpable athletic equipment manufacturers continue purposely promoting deadly MISUSE of their EXPENSIVE flexible "competition" vaulting poles while focusing principally on inflating their PROFITS and SALES results. LETHAL "TRADITIONAL" pole vault teachings actually flagrantly CONTRADICT MANUFACTURER SPECIFICATIONS while, at the same time, arrogantly defying laws of physics dictating the ultimate "linear elastic behavior" of every flexible "competition" vaulting pole manufactured.
It needs to also be noted that an ever-EXPANDING volume of BROKEN flexible "competition" vaulting POLE-REPLACEMENTS inherently and predictably INCREASES the "BOTTOM LINES" of vaulting pole manufacturers. Simultaneously, BROKEN poles and CATASTROPHIC INJURIES also foster INCREASED SALES VOLUME of very, very, very PROFITABLE "MANDATED" SAFETY-RELATED EQUIPMENT requirements that metamorphose perpetually as a result! There are horrendous conflicts of interest openly violating "public trust" stemming from the tentacles of corruption devouring track and field's pole vault.
Above, you can watch top-ranked female vaulters, Jenn Suhr and Sandi Morris, BREAK poles using lethal "TRADITIONAL" pole vault methods. Below, as you watch "elite" South African vaulter, Willem Coertzen, SHATTER his flexible "competition" pole, you can also observe how the "BULL-PUSH" causes the pole to "snake" or "S" as Willem forces the bending pole to his right. In the second video below, you can see for yourself the same result as German vaulter, Danny Ecker, BREAKS his "UCS Spirit" flexible "competition" pole foolishly repeating the same archaic lethal "TRADITIONAL" pole vault teachings.
As the Internet has developed exponentially since we introduced AIR STRIKE pole vault methods in 1992, so has the clarity and abundance of evidence exposing industry "insiders" who've methodically eliminated SAFER LESS EXPENSIVE "UNIFORM DIAMETER" flexible vaulting poles while they shamelessly shrug off the disastrous consequences suffered by naive victims of their purposeful negligence. No mortal human being can safely learn to pole vault properly by starting out using flexible "COMPETITION" poles that are absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to BEND CORRECTLY applying dangerous "TRADITIONAL" pole vault teachings.
FLEXING POLES CORRECTLY TO VAULT SAFER, HIGHER & PROPERLY, DOES NOT REQUIRE "SPEED"!!!
CONTINUE TO 3 OF 4 TO SEE THE HISTORY OF HOW IT ALL WENT WRONG.
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