PCHS SENIOR COMPETES IN JR. OLYMPICS FINALS
Measure the distance to your point of take off
Set markers along the runway to make sure your steps fall on just the right spots
Grab a 14-foot pole in both hands
Sprint down a runway carrying the pole at a 35-degree angle
Plant the end of the pole in a steel box set into the ground and jump up and forward so the pole bends
Rock your body back so you are facing the sky
While facing the sky and the pole is springing to vertical, start to pull your body up with both hands
Twist your body 180 degrees while straightening it, pointing your feet to the sky, and making sure you don’t hit the horizontal bar you are trying to clear
Let go with your bottom hand
Push yourself higher with your top hand
Let go of the pole
Pivot your legs under the horizontal bar you are trying to clear and throw your torso back
This is how to pole vault—but it isn’t as easy as it sounds.
You may have just seen a pole vaulting world record set at the Olympics. Christian White, a senior at Plant City High School (PCHS) is well on his way to besting the Plant City High School record of 13 feet 6 inches. He won the Federal Division meet at Plant City High School, and came in third in the Hillsborough County competition. He then won silver in the Junior Olympics regional qualifiers, earning a place to compete in the Junior Olympics finals in Greensboro, NC, at the end of July.
“I have always wanted to do it, I always saw it, but I never actually had the chance to,” White said. “When I initially came to PCHS track my freshman year, that is what I put on the paper, but since Covid, they hadn’t had any pole vaulting. They restarted it my sophomore year. I was initially doing mid-distance running. But then one day, after practice, my mom wasn’t there to pick me up yet.” While White waited for his ride, he saw a pole vaulter from USF teaching a female student. “He asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to try it?’ So, I tried it that day.” The pole vaulter saw that White was athletic, and wasn’t afraid of it, so he told the PCHS coach that White might be pretty good at the event. “The coach asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’” After that, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the pole vaulter traveled to Plant City to coach White. “The first day he just taught me how to hold the pole and how to place it in the box, and I was just practicing raising the pole,” White said. “Then, the second day, he let me actually try to get up on it. He said I bent it a lot more than he thought I would have been able to.”
In March 2024, a different pole vaulting coach saw White compete, and approached his parents. He said he liked what he saw and offered to coach White. White began working out with him, and joined his team. At the Regional Qualifiers, White matched his competition personal record of 12 feet. “I was looking at getting 13 feet or 13 feet, 6 inches at the Junior Olympics,” White said. But, being my first big meet, it really got to me.” White’s personal best in practice is over 14 feet.
White also plays basketball for PCHS. “I get most of my running in there,” he said. “When I go to Tampa and work with the coach, it is more technical stuff like getting upside down, how to plant it, getting my steps—that kind of stuff. I practice a little at Plant City High School, but I have pretty much broken the poles we have there, and the others are too short, so I can’t really use any of those. They are trying to get me one right now.”
Injuries are not uncommon for pole vaulters. So far in his career, White has broken two poles. “The first time I broke a pole was in my sophomore year, two days before regionals. I was practicing, and I was going up like normal and then the pole just popped and it broke into three or four pieces and hit me in the chest.” White earned a welt from that break. “My second time was last year. It was a week before regionals. I planted the pole in the box, and I took off wrong. Then it just snapped right in front of me, and pieces flew everywhere. Vaulters also get bruises from hitting the ground, and scratches from the shards of broken poles. “A couple of times I had to try out new poles,” White said. “The first time I would fall on the ground, and I would get rejected a lot and fall.”
“I want to continue this in college,” White said. “I do want to go to a college that has an engineering program. Anywhere I go, as long as they have pole vaulting, I will still try to do it, but I would like to get a scholarship to go somewhere.”
What about pole vaulting gives White satisfaction? “All that practice and all that work I put in— when I finally go get the height, and do something that I have never done before, that feeling like what I worked for wasn’t in vain,” he commented. “The fact that I did the work, and now it is showing really makes everything worth it.
White also likes, “Being up in the air like that. The feeling I get when I am up in the air is something I’ve never felt anywhere else. It is just something I have found fun.”
