This week at the world indoor championships in Paris another male bastion fell. Duncan Mackay tells the unfinished story of pride and prejudice
WOMEN are allowed to serve in the armed services, pilot aeroplanes and run the country. But they are still considered too fragile to compete in some athletics events.
Ever since Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics more than a century ago, female athletes have been fighting to be given the same opportunities as their male counterparts. De Coubertin disapproved of women competing in sports and they were not allowed to take part in track and field until the Antwerp Games in 1928, 32 years after the modern Olympics were founded.
The battle to overcome that prejudice has resembled trench warfare: long and attritional. For women, the marathon – a classic Olympic event – was added to the Games in Los Angeles only in 1984, the 10 000m in Seoul in 1988 and the 5 000m and triple jump in Atlanta last year. Another male bastion fell in Paris this week when the pole vault made its debut at the world indoor championships.
The winner collected not only the gold medal but a purse of $50 000, as prize money was awarded for the first time by the International Amateur Athletic Federation.
The pole vault is the most technical – and dangerous – event in track and field. The best exponents are those, like the men’s world-record holder Sergei Bubka, who ally speed and strength with flexibility. The pole absorbs the vaulter’s kinetic energy then releases it to propel her upwards. She then has to pivot on the pole, shoot her feet over the bar and push the pole away from the crossbar. It can take years to learn to successfully combine the different elements.
Emma George is a former trapeze artist who discovered pole vaulting only 18 months ago. She has set eight world records. “She’s the biggest thing we’ve had for ages in track and field,”‘ says Damien Booth of Athletics Australia.
“The amount of people wanting to talk to her and promote products is amazing.”
The authorities used to point to (now outdated) medical research that claimed events like the pole vault and triple jump were potentially damaging to the uterus as the reason for keeping women out of the event.
“Change is hard for people,” said Jeff Robbins, a leading US pole vault coach. “The doors are opening and people are going to walk through. It’s a kind of mindset that pole vaulting is supposed to be a macho event with big, tough guys.”
Yet pole vaulting is in many ways more gymnastics than athletics because it requires speed, strength, timing, concentration, mobility and suppleness. “I’ve heard people say women can’t vault, they don’t have upper-body strength,” says Robbins. “Then I’ll go to a meet with some of my girls, and the coaches leave and it’s `Oh, when can our girls start vaulting?”
There still remains unease in some quarters, however, about whether pole vaulting is truly safe for women. Kate Staples, Britain’s most famous female exponent, has heard all the arguments. “I don’t see how it can be any more dangerous than gymnastics,” she said. “People still criticise women’s triple-jumping, but there’s no evidence it does any harm. Until they can prove it’s dangerous, they should leave us alone.”
Staples missed the Paris event through injury, but it was not sustained pole vaulting. The former British record holder hurt her back while filming an episode of Gladiators, in which she plays Zodiac.
The medical argument has long been exposed but it is still regularly trotted out by ill-informed critics. “It goes back to Victorian days when people thought that by taking part in this type of event they wouldn’t be able to have our children,” says Brian Hooper, the former UK record holder who introduced Staples to pole vaulting.
The pregnancy line was once used to discourage women from taking part in marathons but world-class athletes of the calibre of Liz McColgan and Ingrid Kristiansen have proved that long-distance running is no hindrance to motherhood.
Women’s pole vaulting has taken off since the IAAF officially recognised the event in 1993. The world record has been broken often during the past three years and it appears that the frequency will be maintained. More and more women in Britain are being attracted to the event – drawn by its growing opportunities.
It is estimated that 20 000 girls and women are vaulting in the United States, 12 000 of them in high school – a youth movement that will be difficult to hold back.
Paris marked another important battle won, but the war continues. The women’s pole vault will not be contested at the world championships in Athens this year – though it will be included in the 1999 event – and the steeplechase and hammer are still missing from the women’s championship programme.
“The notion that women can’t do something is ludicrous,” says Robbins. “Instead of looking at what they can’t do, let’s focus on teaching them how to do what they want to do.”