Dragila tranforms image of pole vault

A quick scan of the crowd at the women's pole vault at this year's athletics world championships in Edmonton, Canada, confirmed one overwhelming impression.

Women's pole vaulting, it seemed, had the same appeal as a tennis match featuring Anna Kournikova.

An audience of mostly adolescent young men, cameras pressed to their faces, were clearly more interested in the physical charms of the vaulters than their results.

Four hours later the emphasis had shifted.

When Stacy Dragila, the only world and Olympic champion her chosen discipline has known, punched her fists into the prairie dusk in triumph, the cheers and whistles echoing throughout the Commonwealth Stadium were to acknowledge a sport coming of age and a riveting athletic competition rather than an athletic physique.

As spectators filed out of the stadium the buzz confirmed the feeling that they had witnessed something significant, the most competitive women's vaulting event ever staged.

The competition produced some of the best edge-of-your-seat excitement of the championships with Dragila and Russia's Svetlana Feofanova both attempting a world-record height of 4.82 metres.

In the end, Dragila's record of 4.81 remained untouched as she successfully defended her gold by the tightest of margins, beating Feofanova on the countback with a height of 4.75.

But while Dragila's record failed to fall in Edmonton it is unlikely to stand the test of time, as the 30-year-old American has smashed the women's pole vault mark eight times (four indoor, four outdoor) in the last year alone.

NEW HEIGHTS

"A few years ago people were laughing at us, saying this sport isn't going to take off, it's not going to grow as fast as they think it is but every year the record keeps rising," said Dragila, a former heptathlete and rodeo cowgirl.

"The sky's the limit and we have three girls right here who can keep pushing the bar higher. The record is going to keep going up."

Having been recognised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) only four years ago, women's pole vaulting has spent almost the entire time struggling for acceptance, with a lack of quality vaulters and events contributing to a lack of respect.

Considered the glamour event in women's athletics, pole vaulting has had to battle to be taken seriously with athletes such as Australia's Olympic silver medal winner Tatiana Grigorieva receiving more attention and money for her looks than her accomplishments.

But it appears that Edmonton may have finally established the women's pole vault as an equal alongside athletics' more traditional disciplines.

Certainly the track and field world has accepted women's pole vaulting, with Dragila sweeping most of the top athletics awards on offer.

This year Dragila has accepted the IAAF's woman athlete of the year honours and the Jesse Owens Award as the United States' outstanding track and field athlete.

She was also named the world's top woman track and field athlete for 2001 by the prestigious Track and Field News monthly magazine, receiving 25 of 34 first-place ballots to easily beat three-times winner Marion Jones.