Review from Tom McNab
Coach for Great Britain at both summer and winter Olympic Games;
Formerly Fitness advisor for Chelsea Football club and the English Rugby Team; Author of the standard bibliography of Track and Field, and a series of novels acclaimed world wide. )

BEGINNER TO BUBKA (Launder & Gormley)
As far as athletics literature is concerned, I am the anorak of anoraks, having in my stay in this vale of tears read over a thousand books on athletics and articles beyond number. When, therefore, I say that ³ Beginner To Bubka² is undoubtedly the finest technical manual ever written in the English language, then I would hope to be taken seriously. For almost all technical books are like a series of recipes; all the ingredients are there, but little advice on the actual cooking. For mere descriptive accounts ie ³the free thigh is lifted, together with the arms²are of little value. What coaches want to know is how, at the early instructional period , to construct technical models , and how to deal in a practical manner with the problems which arise .And, on some occasions, when to let things be, when ,in effect, to avoid perfection. And what they want above all is advice which has passed through the sieve of experience. This is what Launder¹s book delivers in spades.

When fibre ­glass vaulting first began, in the mid- 60s, the natural emphasis was on the bending of the pole. In the 90s. the Russians did as they had done in the 50s with high jump, by analysing what the best jumpers had done in the past, and distilling the core principles. Then, they had correctly concluded that take-off was the key, and so it was with pole vault. The Bubka technique was the result, and Launder and his co- author John Gormley have delivered an outstanding practical exposition on how it can be achieved .It is essential reading ,not only for all vault coaches, but for everyone involved in coach education.

Tom McNab

1. Neovault.com(USA)
2. Track & Field (USA)
3. Neuff Equipment (UK)

Regardless of whether you agree with the text or not, you will come away from this book a better pole vaulter. And because of this it is likely you will return to it.