Track and Field / Randy Harvey : Photographers Create a Bad Scene

Officials are taking precautions to assure that the pole vault competition at the Mobil/TAC Indoor championships tonight at New York’s Madison Square Garden doesn’t create an international incident, as it threatened to do two weeks ago at the Millrose Games.

In that meet at the Garden, officials issued 25 credentials to photographers, who were tripping over each other as they maneuvered for position around the vault pit. Maurice Lucas has nothing on some of these photographers. Angling for the best vantage points, photographers interfered with the jumps of three competitors, Billy Olson, Joe Dial and Vasily Bubka.

The trouble started when Olson and Dial, both Americans, were granted extra jumps but Bubka, a Soviet, was not. His brother, Sergei, threatened to withdraw from the competition until officials ruled he also could have an extra jump. Nevertheless, Sergei still was not appeased, blaming the controversy on “the American way.”

Officials plan to do it some other way tonight, limiting the number of photographers around the pole vault pit to eight.

Asked Wednesday in New York if he feels the officials have taken the proper precautions, Bubka said: “I came here to vault. I am not here to organize events.”

Besides the pole vault competition among Bubka, Olson and Dial, who collectively have broken the world indoor record eight times since Dec. 28, this meet has one of the indoor season’s best fields, including 13 East Germans.

One of the East Germans is Marita Koch, Track & Field News’ woman athlete of the year for 1985. She has not decided which events she will enter, but there is a possibility that she will run both the 220 and the 440. Meet officials were looking forward to matching Koch against Valerie Brisco-Hooks in those events, but the American has withdrawn because of tendinitis.

If Koch runs the 440, she still may have to race Diane Dixon, who has been the most impressive American woman during the indoor season. Dixon virtually has clinched the women’s overall championship in the Mobil Grand Prix standings. Among the men, Olson leads by only 10 points over high jumper Jimmy Howard. This will be the final meet on the circuit. Overall winners each earn $10,000.

The East Germans surprised meet officials when they accepted The Athletics Congress’ invitation to compete in New York. Speculation is that they are hoping TAC will return the favor by encouraging American athletes to participate in the outdoor Grand Prix meet this summer in Dresden.

Sergei Bubka, who regained his world indoor pole vault record with a jump of 19-5 3/4 last Friday night at the Forum, has told American friends that he would not be as successful if not for the Soviet system of athletics.

The contrast in the decisions that he and Olson made at the Michelob Invitational last Sunday in San Diego is an example of what Bubka means.

After jumping three times in eight days, Bubka said he didn’t want to risk further injuring his shoulder by competing in San Diego. So he didn’t. Even an offer of $3,000, along with a potential $3,000 bonus if he broke the world record, couldn’t change his mind.

Bubka hardly needs the money. He and his wife, Lillya, and their 7-month-old son, Vitaly, share a four-room apartment in Donetsk that is less than 200 yards from the school where Bubka trains.

The apartment is provided by the state, as is a car. Bubka also receives a modest financial grant, which is supplemented by his wife’s salary as an aerobics instructor at the school. When Bubka’s career ends, he is guaranteed a job as a coach.

As for Olson, he probably shouldn’t have competed Sunday because of a hamstring injury suffered two nights earlier. But whereas Bubka can make decisions based on his athletic priorities, Olson also has to consider finances. He couldn’t resist the $6,000 payday in San Diego, his largest ever.

Unlike Bubka, Olson has to pay his own rent and make his own car payments. Also, he has no guaranteed income after he retires from competition. The result was that Olson aggravated the hamstring injury, which may prevent him from competing tonight.