Who invented pole vaulting

What do you think about the above article? Log In to Comment Comment as Guest. Follow us on Twitter. Tweets by sportsmatik. Crossbar Sport: Pole Vault. Landing area Sport: Pole Vault. View All. Venues around the world. Ascot Racecourse Ascot, United Kingdom.

Celtic Park Glasgow, United Kingdom. Amazing Technologies. Instant Replay Sport s : Multiple. Over the years, pole vaulting changed from being a pragmatic mode of transportation to a sport. In , the idea of competing for height as opposed to distance was pioneered at an early contest at Ulverston Football and Cricket Club in Lancashire.

By , competitions in the sport were being held routinely in Germany, and by the midth century, the techniques we see today were already in use in the U. Although the poles were formerly made of aluminum or bamboo, by the s, modern composites such as fiberglass were substituted — making for a stronger, yet equally light, pole that enabled vaulters to reach even greater heights. However, there was one very significant change to the sport that happened only relatively recently.

In the early s, five-time All-American from Indiana University, Dave Volz, perfected a technique of steadying the cross-bar during a jump. Unable to make the Olympic team in and he broke his right leg in multiple places in , Volz surprised everyone when he finally made the U. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close. Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar.

Pole vaulting, originally for distance, dates back to at least the 16th century and there is also evidence it was even practised in Ancient Greece. The origins of modern vaulting can be traced back to Germany in the s, when the sport was adopted by a gymnastic association, and in the Lake District region of England, where contests were held with ash or hickory poles with iron spikes in the end.

The first recorded use of bamboo poles was in The top vaulters started using steel poles in the s. Flexible fibreglass and later carbon fibre poles started to be widely used in the late s. Bob Richards and is the only man in history to win two Olympic pole vault titles.