Quite late but as you can see via my Instagram spam and blog post's extended nap... I've been a little busy hahaha. But here is a little post on another instalment of this pole vault comp concept, to bring pole vault to the people, to give people an opportunity to see up close how high these guys really fly; something that is not normally the case in a traditional event put on by the legends of Athletics NZ.
So Britomart 2017 was kind of a hit. The idea of putting a pole vault aka flying humans in such an inconvenient location is such a random thing, but it is different and people like seeing something new, well thats what I thought anyway. So this year? A few ideas were flown around in terms of location but it was Federal Street that took the cake after interest from such an awesome and accommodating sponsor SKYCITY (not paid to say that, I legit mean it, so lit).
Federal Street is well, a road that cars drive on (it is actually busy, many times I would go out to scope the place etc there were always cars). Not only that small factor but the small inconvenience that the street is on a slight camber.. but it also downhill hahah shit. So how do we counter this? A fancy pants runway ordered from overseas! Cool colour too. So said runway finally arrived a week prior to D-day (it was ordered many many months ago, but it had to be built then shipped so no same day delivery unfortunately). It arrived in 80 pieces, each piece 86kg each........... it is quite the beast. As you can imagine, transporting the thing is great fun. So 6am we are on the street building this thing. The complexity of the street meant some kiwi ingenuity was kicked in to slightly modify the original design with the ingenius alter ego of the Coach God that is Jeremy McColl as he bought out his past life as a builder and took charge in reconstructing this thing to make something, with the help of a bunch of amazing volunteers and Athletics NZ staff, this bright blue runway was in action that banger afternoon.
Crowds started rolling in and crowding up against the barriers that were a mere metre from the stars. Probably the closest the majority of the spectators got to these guys. Mother nature turned on the sun but obviously you can't have it all as there was one lovely wind tunnel heading face on to the athlete. Sorry team. But none the least the comp went flying. We were lucky to have two talented international girls: Morgann Leleux from the USA and Anicka Newell from Canada jumping along side our flying squad of Nick Southgate, Imogen Ayris, Ettiene Du Preez, James Steyn and one you probably haven't heard of; Eliza McCartney.
A hyping event as it was, there was some extra epic jumping by Imogen, popping an awesome 4.20m and of course, sub species of human that is Eliza bloody McCartney banged out a monster FOUR METRES NINETY (!?!??!?!) (both of 12 step). Epic performance by these girls! (these arent actual personal bests cause the set up is classed as an exhibition comp and its not IAAF Certified).
While i was on the go from 6am till 2pm before doing actual job capturing the comp, it was so epic to see it all come to life! I will shut up now but here below are some images from the comp! (full album can be found here). Cheers for all that came or tuned into the live stream! Love you all xo
