Canadian defending champion Shawn Barber launches pole vault quest with a risky new approach,
Since winning title in 2015, Canadian pole vaulter has struggled with inconsistency
LONDON— Shawn Barber is the world champion in pole vault and yet he entered the stadium here Sunday morning for the preliminaries as an underdog.
He’s one of only a handful of current jumpers that have cleared six-metres and yet, as he says, pole vault is a series of ups and downs. And the 23-year-old Canadian has had more downs than ups since the Rio Olympics where he finished a disappointing 10th.
Part of that is because he’s been taking a sporting risk and changing his jumping style in the hopes of scaling even greater heights.
It may not look like it but pole vault is a bit like golf, Barber’s coach Dennis Mitchell explains.
The rhythm of the swing can come and it can go, seemingly for no reason at all, and when you change one little thing it changes everything down the line.
That’s led to uncharacteristically inconsistent jumping by the 23-yearold Canadian and lacklustre results. So much so, that the IAAF’s preview of the men’s pole vault competition only mentions Barber—the defending champion — in passing, in the final paragraph.
“I’m trying to experiment with the way I’m jumping. I think that’s the only way to make sure I’m able to take attempts at the world record heights,” Barber said recently.
He’s altered his approach run and how his holds his pole. They’re not big changes, but it doesn’t take much in this sport to throw everything out of whack. And that’s a pretty scary thing at this level where athletes have to get a lot right just to bend the long, stiff poles and land in the pit with the mat, rather than back on the runway.
“That’s the fear factor of pole vaulting, you want to get on the big pole but you want to get into the pit and you’re having to trust to do that,” Mitchell said.
“It’s one of the most exciting things about pole vaulting that nobody knows about, they’re not just trying to get over the bar, they’re trying to get in the pit.”
Sprinting with a pole in hand, planting in the box and launching upwards and upside down can be a leap of faith when things aren’t going well.
“When you change something it can make the rest of your jump awkward for a while and I’m learning to deal with that,” Barber said, at Canadian nationals last month, summing up why his season has been such a struggle. It hasn’t been easy. “You get down on yourself a little bit when you’re not jumping bars that you know you could be if you regressed but, you know, you never learn anything by regressing,” he said. “To grow and change is good.” The question mark for him has been whether he’d be able to put all the pieces back together in time to defend his gold medal here.
He got off to a good start in Sunday’s qualifying round.
He didn’t miss a height until 5.70, which he cleared on his third attempt and qualified easily along with the other top names of the sport, including French world record holder Renaud Lavillenie and this year’s best jumper American Sam Kendricks.
“I feel good, the run feels fine, the jump feels fine,” Barber said, after his qualification.
“It’s the first time we’re really putting things together all at once, it’s a little raw, but I expect in two days things will come together better,” he said.
“You play a card and you hope that it works out, you got to stick to your guns sometimes to see it through.”
On Tuesday, he’ll find out if he played the right card.