Bubka Is at Home, but It Still Could Be Big Year for Vaulters

The ongoing story of the 1986 indoor track and field season was the coast-to-coast assault on the world pole vault record, with Billy Olson and the Soviet Union’s Sergei Bubka pushing one another to the outer limits.

Joe Dial even claimed the indoor record briefly in what was a very good year for vaulters. It’s possible, though, that 1987 might be another moon-shot season for them.

Olson said he has been jumping high in practice. Dial said he has been beyond 19 feet twice in intramural meets at Norman, Okla.

Bubka, who holds the indoor record at 19 feet 6 inches, is staying home for now. However, if an American--Olson, Dial, Earl Bell, or someone else--takes his record away from him, look for Bubka to quickly book an Aeroflot flight to the United States.

“I want to jump higher than any American has ever jumped, indoors or outdoors,” Olson said by phone from Dallas. “And I want to take some of Bubka’s records away along the way. I don’t think the indoor record is as good as the outdoor record. The indoor record is definitely obtainable.”

Olson topped out at 19-5 1/2 indoors last year. Bubka’s outdoor record is 19-8 1/2, a height that the Soviet athlete cleared with relative ease in the Goodwill Games last July at Moscow.

“I don’t know what to say about that vault,” Olson said. “I’m not going to disbelieve anything I see him do. It was incredible. It looked like an 18-8 jump because of the ease in which he made it.”

But Olson isn’t in awe of Bubka’s indoor record and he, Dial and Bell will start climbing for it Friday night in the Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena.

Olson said he made a mistake last season in not trying to go appreciably higher in any of his four world-record vaults.

“I did some things I’m not going to do this year,” he said. “I always tried to whittle away at the records and only one time did I try a much higher bar than the record.

“It’s a mistake I’ve made over the years and, as a result, I haven’t jumped as high as I’m capable of jumping. This year, I’m going to jump at real high bars, instead of a centimeter over the record.

“For example, if I make 19 feet at the Sunkist meet, I’m not going to 5.96 meters (19-6 1/2). I’m going to go to 6 meters (19-8), or 6.01 (19-8 3/4) and I think I can make it.”

Dial, who holds the American outdoor record at 19-4, has been training diligently in Norman.

“I don’t see how anybody could have trained any harder that I have from last summer to now,” said the smallest of the world-class vaulters at 5-9 and 158 pounds. “So, I should be ready.”

Dial’s 1986 outdoor season was curtailed when he suffered a hamstring injury. So he limped home from the European tour and pointed for this season.

Besides clearing 19 feet in some casual meets in Norman, he barely missed at 19-5 in a meet last October in Brazil, he said.

There’s incentive for athletes to excel this year. The first World indoor meet will be held March 6-8 in Indianapolis and the World outdoor meet is scheduled next September in Rome.

Dial said he’s going to try to reach a peak for both meets. “I’m in the best shape of my life and my goal is to be consistent at 19 feet,” he said.

Dial and Olson got into a shoving match two years ago in a meet at Dallas, but neither athlete wants to escalate any so-called feud.

“Hopefully, that’s in the past, “ Dial said.

Olson said, however, that he has been told authoritatively that Dial’s published world indoor-record vault of 19-4 3/4 last February in Columbia, Mo., wasn’t even submitted for record consideration.

“That should tell you something about that record,” Olson said.

If Dial wanted to counter, he could say that Olson simply disappears during the outdoor season. Olson hasn’t done much outdoors in recent years and he’s the first to acknowledge it.

“But I want to establish myself outdoors this season,” Olson said. “I haven’t cared about an outdoor season for a long time. For one thing, I starve to death during the outdoor season. The motivation is not there. It’s a lot of things, not just financially. The time required for me to get good doesn’t equal out. “I don’t want to sound like I jump just for the money, but I have to feed myself. When I’m preparing for a peak, I have to train four or five hours a day.

“Still, I want to get comfortable again outdoors and jump high outdoors. It will just take some work. I don’t know how long my outdoor season will be, but it will be long enough for me to establish the fact that I can can jump higher outdoors than any American.”

Olson says he’s vaulting with a broken left wrist, an injury he has endured since 1980.

“Two bones in the wrist are completely broken,” he said. “It’s getting to where the bones are atrophying and calcifying and I’m getting some arthritis. And it’s uncomfortable.

“My doctor said there’s a 75% chance that surgery would be successful. But there’s always that 25% chance that it could be worse.

“If it’s worse, I’m going to be in trouble. As it is right now, I can still jump with it, but I don’t know if I could jump with it if it got worse. There’s a lot of pain and I only have about 20% normal range of motion.

Luckily, it’s not my right wrist.

“The left wrist is not as important as the right in vaulting. But the left wrist takes the brunt at takeoff. That’s where the pain comes in. You’re supposed to be resisting somewhat with your left arm. But it’s collapsing more than it should and it makes me somewhat inefficient at takeoff.”

Olson said that he had a dream indoor season in 1986.

“It was especially exciting because I had been lousy the two previous years,” he said. “I had honestly thought I was finished. That indoor season was my last push to make a comeback. I jumped at a consistently higher level than I ever jumped before.”

But Bubka wasn’t impressed, saying haughtily before The Times/GTE meet last February that Olson wouldn’t know which way to go on the runway in a major competition.

“Here’s my analysis of all that,” Olson said. “In his short career, he has hardly been threatened. He said he doesn’t like Pierre Quinon because he got what Sergei felt should be his--a gold medal in the Olympics.

“When I beat some of his records, that’s when the bad mouthing started. I don’t know whether he lashed out to boost his own confidence, or just to tear me down. I think that’s the way Soviet athletes are geared, and it may not be a bad way to feel, that they’re unbeatable.”

Even so, Olson says he enjoys competing against Bubka.

“If things are heating up here, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him,” he said. “Things just aren’t the same without old Sergei. I can jump high and do it by myself and be happy, but it’s just not the same. There’s one guy in the world to beat and it’s him. If I’m jumping for a record, I’d like him to be involved with me.”

Olson said he plans to compete in nine indoor meets, among them The Times/GTE meet Feb. 20 at the Forum.

Now that 19 feet has been established almost as a starting point for the world’s best vaulters, Olson says that a 20-foot vault is a reality.

“I just hope I can beat Bubka to it,” Olson said. “I don’t think anyone who has broken a previous foot record has also broken the next one.”

Olson was referring to his being the first vaulter to clear 19 feet indoors. He would like to be the first to scale 20 feet.

Said Dial: “It’s (20 feet) going to happen. It’s just a matter of time. Someone is going to do it, so I figure it might as well be me.”