John Pennel
 |
||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | July 25, 1940 Memphis, Tennessee, United States |
|||||||||
| Died | September 26, 1993 (aged 53) Santa Monica, California, United States |
|||||||||
| Height | 1.77 m (5 ft 10 in) | |||||||||
| Weight | 76 kg (168 lb) | |||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||
| Sport | Athletics | |||||||||
| Event(s) | Pole vault, long jump | |||||||||
| Club | Southern California Striders, Anaheim | |||||||||
| Achievements and titles | ||||||||||
| Personal best(s) | PV – 5.44 m (1969) LJ – 7.13 m (1963) |
|||||||||
|
Medal record
|
||||||||||
John Thomas Pennel (July 25, 1940 – September 26, 1993) was an American pole vaulter, and four-time world record holder.
When Robert Gardner became the first man to clear 13 feet in 1912 many people thought the pole vault limit was close at hand. It was nothing of the sort, of course, but progress was painfully slow – about one inch per year on average. Sabin Carr was the first man over 14 feet in 1927 and the Californian Cornelius "Dutch" Warmerdam was the pioneer over 15 feet in 1940, using a bamboo pole. Twenty-two years elapsed before a man sailed over 16 feet in the shape of German-born American John Uelses. But with the help of technology in the form of fiberglass vaulting poles it wasn't long before seventeen feet was cleared by 23-year-old John Pennel.
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Pennel started pole vaulting at his father's farm with an old television aerial. At Coral Gables High School, where he was a member of both the gymnastics and the athletics teams, he cleared 11 feet 3 inches (3.43 m) at the age of 15. Improving steadily under the coaching of Ed Injachock he improved to 3.80 m in 1958 and in 1959 he ranked 8th among American schoolboys with 4.14 m (13 ft 7 in). At one time he also held the Dade County (Florida) record for climbing a 20-foot rope in 4.2 seconds.
In 1959 Pennel went to Northeast Louisiana State College (NLSC) on a track scholarship and continued to improve, clearing 4.32 m (14 ft 2 in) in 1959, and then his big breakthrough came at a meet at Chattanooga on March 19, 1960. Off a dirt runway and using a borrowed aluminium pole he cleared 4.58 m, just a quarter of an inch over fifteen feet and a national record for a college freshman. Unable to reproduce that sort of form outdoors his best for the remainder of the season was 4.39 m (14 ft. 5"). He cleared 4.47 m (14 ft 8 in) in 1961 before switching to the new fiberglass poles and within a very few months began to reap the benefits; on the last day of the year he went over fifteen feet again (4.61 m) in New Orleans and improved to 4.67 m (15 ft. 4") indoors on January 12, 1962, but again failed to repeat his form outdoors that season.
...
Wikipedia