Earlier today, Uri and Randy posted their exceptions to my lists of most consistent vaulters. Uri's was on the list's validity as a predictor of performance in Athens. Randy's objected to the greater number of competition opportunities of USA vaulters than others at this point in the season.
I didn't state or intend the lists as predictors of Olympic success. If I had, I probably would have included Alexandr Averbukh, because of his current high world ranking, although he didn't make the list of those with four or more top-100 performances. I certainly wouldn't have included Jeff Hartwig, since he had been eliminated from Olympic contention in the USATF trials. My interest was solely that of identifying the vaulters who have, to date, the greatest number of top-100 performances in this outdoor season. If that favors the Americans, it at least correctly reflects their world rankings. Half of the top ten men's vaulters are Americans. #1-ranked Toby Stevenson, who topped the list of "most consistent" with 9 top-100 performances, has had 13 outdoor meets this season, as has #2-ranked Tim Mack. #3-ranked Averbukh (ISR) has competed 9 times, but only three of those were top-100 performances. Of the other non-Americans with greatest name recognition, #10 Dmitri Markov (AUS) has had 7 outdoor meets in Australia and 14 elsewhere; #13 Romain Mesnil (FRA), 11 outdoor opportunities; and #15 Tim Lobinger (GER), 16. My observation from these data would be that while American vaulters do, indeed, have more and earlier competitive opportunities than most of the world's vaulters, these differences are not overwhelming when the comparison is with the best of other competitors. I like Randy's suggestion of month-to-month percentage of top-100 performances as a predictor of success in later meets of the season. Maybe he'll follow up on it. Again, if you're interested in seasonal performances in the vault or other events, I'll remind you that you'll find the links for individual athletes on the homepage of Mirko Jalava's website <tilastopaja.net>. >Men's Most Consistent Performers a/o 2 August > >Toby Stevenson USA 9 (6.00 - 5.71) >Jeff Hartwig USA 6 (5.81 - 5.70) >Tim Mack USA 5 (5.90 - 5.70) >Derek Miles USA 5 (5.81 - 5.70) >Dmitri Markov AUS 5 (5.80 - 5.71) >Lars Borgeling GER 5 (5.80 - 5.70) >Tim Lobinger GER 5 (5.80 - 5.70) >Brad Walker USA 4 (5.82 - 5.75) >Rens Blom NED 4 (5.81 - 5.70) >Romain Mesnil FRA 4 (5.80 - 5.70) >Tye Harvey USA 4 (5.80 - 5.70) >Danny Ecker GER 4 (5.72 - 5.70) > >100th performance = 5.70m (18'8 1/4")
