bitsofbobs

If like me you get constantly caught up in random debate but never get round to googling it then here’s a lesson for you right here. The banter…Can you/how do you make a living from sport (mostly athletic for some reason was the topic) it quickly moved to pole vaulting as the most obscure sport to use as an example. If you pole vaulted for a living? would you need another job or could you make enough money vaulting to sustain a career. Normally these things just fizzle away unanswered. Not this time. Straight back to the office and googled everything pole vault career related “pole vaulting for a living”, “working as a pole vaulter” and lots of others with no solid answer. Quickly I realised I needed to speak to somone…someone who could tell me…straight. More googling…hard work I looked into universities, personal trainers and most of them appeared to be in the USA. Eventually I ended up at the Polevault Safety Certification Board or rather catchy pvscb for short. Found an info contact there so just randomly emailed the following.

Hi there, was wondering if you could help me? It was more a conversation piece than anything but… If you did become a professional pole vaulter what kind of income could you make? for instance…If i was pole vaulting professionally could I make a living from it or would I have to hold down a part time/other full time job?

thanks
rob

Minutes passed then bomp…response

Rob,

Great question! Back when I was jumping in the 90′s If you were in the top 15 or so in the world you could easily make a good living and not need to get a job (50k USD or more). I hear it is more difficult these days since you must compete for prize money in each meet. This means you always need to be jumping well to earn any money. You can win as much as 10k if you win a meet for example. 5th place might only get 2k. Hope this helps.

Dean

This kind of stuff makes me very happy I love it when people take the time to answer my seemingly random questions and look at his answer…RIGHT on the money. Didn’t even had to ask anymore questions to clarify the issue.

I had to send an email back expressing my happiness.

Hi Dean,

That’s brilliant…thanks very much. It just popped up into conversation…it just happened to be pole vaulting as an example.

Thanks for your help…much appreciated.

Out of interest what job now as an ex pole vaulter like yourself now do? and do you occasionally vault?

these are all questions I thought I’d never ask/need to know but might as well make the most of it

thanks again.
take care
robj

One thing lead to another he did get back to me told me where he was working and also had a link to his website. I went back to work satisfied I’d come to a conclusion and happy that a random email had ended in a pleasant chat with Dean who was more than happy to help. It wasn’t till later in the day I checked his links again and went to deans about section….then bomp there it was…I couldn’t believe it

IT’S ONLY DEAN STARKEY 1997 BRONZE MEDAL OLYMPIC MEDAL WINNER AT ATHENS.

Ladies and gentleman round of applause, Mr Dean Starkey. Brilliant. How many olympic medal winners do you have in your email contacts…huh?

I did email him back feeling slightly humbled and did give him a virtual high five. Brilliant. I love the Internet