Top Moments of the Meet (2): Corbin Mayes Steals a Little Manson Thunder
Around Colorado, the surname of Manson and pole vaulting are known to go together. Even if it's not the right answer to every question about high school pole vaulting in Colorado, "Manson" is always a very good guess.
So, it came as little surprise that Mia Manson, fresh off an 11-8 PR last weekend at the National Pole Vault Summit, was the last one standing in the girls pole vault. It's a little scary to watch Mia Manson pole vaulting. One, she has exceptional speed down the runway. Two, there are a few rough edges she's still working on smoothing over.
Once she gets the complete hang of things, there may be some endangered records around the state.
Due to a clever little stratagem employed by the ever-resourceful ATB folks, the boys and girls pole vaults ran simulatenously, only the bar was placed 18 inches higher or lower depending on who was vaulting.
And, just about the same time that Mia Manson finally bowed out of the girls competition after sailing over 11-6, the boys competition had whittled itself down to Geoff Lord, Max Manson, and Corbin Mayes.
Misses became a bit more frequent all around starting at about 14 feet, but all three managed to get over the bar at 14 feet, then Manson and Mayes at 14-6.
Mayes (photo, above) wasted little time clearing the bar at 15-0. Manson had the requisite height to get over the 15-0 bar on all three tries, but kept scraping the bar on the way down, making Mayes the winner of this round of competition between the two. No doubt, other rounds will follow, and it will be entertaining.
Mayes raised the bar to 15-6 to take a whack at a PR, but never got near a clearance in his three attempts. That PR will have to wait for another day.