Look! No Pole!

Rare picture at left shows Gordon Townsend, the Otago pole-vaulter, flying over the bar at 12ft 1in during his attempt on the New Zealand pole-vault record at Childers Road Reserve this month.

"Flying" seems to he the right word in this case. By a fluke of split-second timing, Gordon had flicked the pole out of camera range in time for our shutter to catch him "crossing the bar" apparently unaided.

He missed the record, but put up the country's second-best pole vault at 13ft 1in.

Perhaps on the strength of this picture he could put in a claim for the world's high-jump record!

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At 12ft 1in

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At 12ft 7in

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At 13ft 1in (second highest vault in NZ)

Pole vaulting is not often seen in Gisborne, and so the display put on by a party of four from West Coast, North Island (including Townsend) was a highlight of the athletics meeting held at Childers Road Reserve. Here Gordon Townsend and Kevin Gibbons, two of N. Z.'s top vaulters, feature in a sequence from runup to landing.

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1. Gibbons taking his run

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2. Gibbons: start of the lift

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3. Townsend: climbing up to the bar

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4. Gibbons: start of the crossing

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5. Townsend: nearly over.

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6. Townsend: beginning the descent from 13ft.

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7. Gibbons: the landing