TRACK AND FIELD JUNIOR OLYMPICS : 16-Foot Vault Eludes Winner Weighall

The toughest opponent Rob Weighall has faced in the Junior Olympics is a bar 16 feet in the air.

Weighall, 15, of Bakersfield, who won the intermediate boys’ decathlon Wednesday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, clinched the championship in the pole vault Friday at 15 feet 1 1/4 inches.

He then had the bar raised to 16 feet, the record for his age group.

“What I was thinking was, I had finally done what I came for (winning the decathlon and the pole vault),” he said. “Now, all I wanted to do was be the best there’s ever been at my age.”

For now, that person is still Jayson Lavender of Wichita Falls, Tex., who cleared 16 feet in 1987.

Weighall missed on all three attempts to tie the record. He came close on his first two tries, but then he and his coach, Dion Giuliano, a former pole vaulter and decathlete at Cal State Northridge, decided that his only chance to make the height was to switch to a 16-foot pole, rather than the 15-foot version he had been using.

Weighall had used the longer pole only once, and his mechanics were out of sync. He planted the pole but made it only about halfway up.

Junior Olympic Notes

Today’s competition will begin at 8 a.m. at Hilmer Lodge Stadium. . . . Miya Edmonson of Inglewood won the bantam girls’ long jump with a leap of 14 feet 4 1/2 inches. . . . Alisyn Palla of Bakersfield finished second in the midget girls’ discus with a throw of 99 feet 9 inches.