Pole Vaulters Ready to Launch

Published On: 20 August 2008

Hooker begins his Olympic campaign tonight.

WAIS pole vault athletes Steve Hooker and Paul Burgess begin their Olympic campaigns tonight from the Bird’s Nest stadium in China.

The Beijing pole vault competition stands as one of the most open and competitive of recent times with several men all in with a chance for gold. Western Australian Steve Hooker is considered Australia’s brightest hope after he secured a second place finish at the London GP, his final warm up before the Olympics where he jumped a second best career height of 5.97m.

Hooker also claimed gold at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, reinforcing his reputation as one of the best leapers on the planet. Despite the big raps, Hooker said after London that the medal had no one’s name on it yet.

“It’s the Olympic Games. Anyone could step up so I’m not discounting anyone and I will just go out there and try to jump every bar that I am capable of jumping and I’ll see what happens with the result,” Hooker said.

Paul Burgess is the second athlete representing Western Australia in Beijing and like Hooker, works under the guidance of WAIS pole vault Coach Alex Parnov. Burgess will compete in his third Olympic campaign but has suffered an interrupted build up through injury that has prevented him from competing in a number of major European meets in the last six months. Burgess like Hooker is a member of the exclusive six metre club and will be in with a shot of qualifying for Friday’s final.

The final qualification height is set at 5.75m, Hooker will be expected to clear that height after regular clearances of 5.80m or more in recent competition. Burgess will need to step up his clearances and prove he is back to his best to qualify for another Olympic final.

Burgess will jump in group A along side big names such as American Brad Walker and Ukrainian Denys Yurchenko, whilst Hooker will contest group B against strong medal contender Evgeny Lukyanenko of Russia.

Athens gold medallist Tim Mack of the USA could see his Olympic record of 5.95m knocked over, but Ukrainian legend Sergey Bubka’s world record of 6.14m set in 1994 should remain elusive pending no athlete sets a huge personal best.