Steve Hooker - Pole Vault gold - Melbourne 2006 (© Getty Images)
Australia’s Steve Hooker has joined the exclusive 6.00m pole vaulting club, clearing the magical barrier in interclub competition in Perth, Australia, today.
The 2006 Commonwealth Games champion and World Cup winner was returning to competition after a bout of glandular fever, making the most of the ideal conditions at Perth’s Perry Lakes Stadium to become the third Australian to reach the sought after height.
Hooker, 25, becomes the 15th man to clear the height, and the third Australian behind Dmitri Markov, who jumped 6.05m to win the World title in Edmonton in 2001, and Paul Burgess, who cleared 6.00m at the same location in 2005. Hooker is the 13th man to achieve the feat outdoors and the first since USA’s reigning World champion Brad Walker joined the 6.00m club in July 2006.
Hooker, who went into the World championships in Osaka last year as one of the favourites but had to settle for ninth place after gambling with his height selections, said he was treating his return to competition as a training run, but the ideal conditions made his barrier-breaking leap possible.
“It was my first comp of the year and we were treating it like an extended training session,” said Hooker. “I cleared the opening height of 5.50 on my first attempt and then went to 5.70, 5.80 and 5.90 before having a crack at 6.00m.”
“The conditions were perfect and my first attempt was good, but I needed to go up to a bigger pole, on my second I bailed and got it on the third.”
After mistakenly believing he had cleared 6.00m when setting his personal best of 5.96m in Berlin in 2006, Hooker said he had already achieved the feat “mentally”.
“My weakness the past few years has been converting my form on the runway in training to competitions. I have been inconsistent when I get to competitions and it looks like it is getting better – at least today anyway,” confirmed Hooker.
He will jump again in Perth next weekend, before heading to Melbourne for the World Athletics Tour meeting on Thursday 21 February and the Australian titles and Olympic selection trials in Brisbane (28 Feb – 1 Mar).
The 25-year-old is also targetting the 12th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain (7-9 March).
David Culbert (Athletics Australia Media) for the IAAF
Click here for Pole Vault OUTDOOR all-time list
Click here for Pole Vault INDOOR all-time list
