The Year of the Vault is Upon Us

By Scott Bush

While some events take a while to get going each year, whether that's because their biggest stars don't compete indoors or the event simply isn't contested, others hit their stride mid-February, as the biggest and best national and international meets loom over the horizon. Arguably the best event indoors is the pole vault.

You have numerous men and women making their way on-to or up-in the all-time top ten world rankings, Jenn Suhr (USA) breaking the world record, Shawn Barber (CAN) clearing the 6.00m barrier and enough depth to where there are upwards of eight different individuals who'll be competing for gold, silver and bronze at the World Indoor Championships and Olympic Games. Needless to say, it's worth deeming the first few months of 2016 as the Year of the Vault.

Top Five Performances from the NYRR Millrose Games

The NYRR Millrose Games were, yet again, amazing. So much so that it's pretty impossible to sum up all of the exciting things in this column, so here are the top five performances instead. 

1. The most overlooked and under appreciated performances of the weekend came in the women's pole vault, as Greece's Ekaterini Stefanidi and America's Demi Payne both soared over 4.90m (16-1), which rank the duo third best all-time indoors and fourth best all-time all conditions (indoors and outdoors). The best part is that these two will have many chances over the coming years to improve, as Stefanidi just turned 26 years old, while Payne is 24 years old. While Jenn Suhr remains the favorite to win USATF Indoor and IAAF World Indoor titles, assuming she competes in both events, Payne will definitely challenge Suhr for both and Stefanidi will too at Worlds.
   
   
2. As I mentioned in my What We Learned piece on the NYRR Millrose Games Saturday, Matthew Centrowitz now ranks fourth best all-time indoors over the mile after his stunning 3:50.63-3:51.06 win over Nick Willis. Talk about a great performance!
   
   

   Top Four All-Time Indoor Mile Performances

   3:48.45 - Hicham El Guerrouj (1997)
   3:49.78 - Eamonn Coghlan (1983)
   3:49.89 - Bernard Lagat (2005)
   3:50.63 - Matthew Centrowitz (2016)
   
   

3. While the women's pole vault and men's mile turned out world all-time marks, the women's 5,000m was the deepest event of the day. While Kenyan Betsy Saina won the race in 14:57.18, it was the quartet of Americans that followed which offered the most surprising results. Molly Huddle finished second in a US#2 indoor all-time mark of 14:57.31, while Saina's Bowerman Track Club teammate Emily Infeld ran the third fastest time ever indoors by an American with her 15:00.91 clocking. Add in Marielle Hall and Shelby Houlihan finishing fourth and fifth in 15:06.05 and 15:06.22 and you have four of the top five fastest times ever run by Americans indoors. Talk about depth!
   
   Top Five All-Time U.S. Indoor 5,000m Performances
   14:47.62 - Shalane Flanagan (2009)
   14:57.31 - Molly Huddle (2016)
   15:00.91 - Emily Infeld (2016)
   15:06.05 - Marielle Hall (2016)
   15:06.22 - Shelby Houlihan (2016)
   
   
4. The fourth best performance on the day came from Janay DeLoach in the women's 60m hurdles. DeLoach ran the third fastest time in the world this year, only behind fellow American Keni Harrison (more on her later), while beating American 100m hurdle record holder Brianna Rollins and speedy Jasmine Stowers. DeLoach's 7.85 and Rollins' 7.89 make them the third and fourth hurdlers to dip under 7.90 seconds (Nia Ali and Harrison are the others) and Saturday's race was the fastest 1-2 finish this season. DeLoach has a shot to make the Team USA World Indoor roster in the 60m hurdles and the long jump, which is mighty impressive.
   
   
5. It's tough to pick the fifth best performance, as I am torn between the women's 800m race, which saw Ajee' Wilson set a new indoor PR and take over the world lead (2:00.09) and four women run under 2:01 and the men's 3,000m in which Ryan Hill ran a world lead and Hassan Mead and Eric Jenkins moved onto the U.S. indoor all-time top ten list (#6 and #8, respectively), so I'll just call it a tie and leave it at that. Sorry for the run-on sentence.

Air Lavillenie Clears 6.02m (19-9)

After a slow start to his season, France's Renaud Lavillenie is back on top of the world rankings after clearing 6.02m (19-9) on Sunday at the Clermont-Ferrand meeting in his home country. No only did Lavillenie jump to the world lead, he beat a host of his top competitors along the way, edging out Shawn Barber (CAN), Sam Kendricks (USA) and Konstadinos Filippidis (GRE). The men's pole vault is going to be talented up top and extremely deep at the IAAF World Indoor Championships and it's good for the event to have it's most dominant athlete soaring over heights he should be challenging. 

Watch Lavillenie's winning vault this past weekend.

Three Athletes to Watch Three Weeks Out From USATF Indoors

The previews are coming as the USATF Indoor and World Indoor Championships near, but we'd like to kick off this week with three American track and field stars that we highly suggest keeping an eye on over the next few weeks.

1. Keni Harrison - The former University of Kentucky standout is undefeated on the season over the 60m hurdles despite racing against top-notch fields nearly every time out. She owns four of the five fastest times in the world this year and picked up another big win this past weekend in Glasgow, where she beat reigning indoor world champion Nia Ali for the victory.
   
   
2. Mike Rodgers - Rodgers is Mr. Consistency in the 60m dash. He owns three of the world's top ten fastest marks on the season, including twice running 6.52 seconds, which ranks third best in the world. He picked up a big win over rival Kim Collins in Karlsruhe (Germany) back on February 6 and will give the world's best a run for their money in Portland next month.
   
   
3. Vashti Cunningham - She's only a high school senior, and is probably more worried about making her college decision over how well she'll perform indoors, but Cunningham isn't just the future of the high jump domestically and internationally, she's also the "now" in the event. Cunningham ranks top five in the world currently and could throw down a serious challenge for the USATF Indoor and World Indoor titles over the next few weeks. Drew Hunter is a good story on the prep side in the mile, but Cunningham is doing even bigger things as she's one of the very tip top high jumpers in the world.
   
   

Partying in Portland

Going to be in Portland for the IAAF World Indoor Championships? Well, Vin Lananna has an idea of something you can do outside of catching the amazing track and field action.

U.S. Olympic Team Continues to Grow

You might have missed it, but Team USA continued to grow over the weekend, as the John Nunn earned his third trip to the Olympics after besting the field and getting under the Olympic A standard at the 50k race walk U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Nunn easily beat the field, while Nick Christie and Michael Mannozzi finished second and third and will have until May 8 to hit the standard. 

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