Last Saturday the Ohio weather finally cooperated and at the Hilliard Districts, three of Ohio's and three of the nations best HS Pole vaulters got to go head to head. Joey Uhle, a Senior from Olentangy Liberty, who holds Ohio's indoor record with a vault of 17'3", was the first High School vaulter in Ohio to go over the 17' mark and now holds the Ohio outdoor record with a 17' vault at Districts, Jake Blankenship, a Junior from Gahanna Lincoln, who just last week set a new Ohio outdoor vault record clearing16'10" and Chris Uhle, Joey's twin brother, who until the last two weeks held the State record of 16'9" that he had set at last years State Championships.
I've had to think hard on what and who to write about. Would it be Joey, who nurturing an injury decided not to run in the the 300m Hurdles, an event in which he had one of the better times in the State and to concentrate only on vault, would it be his brother Chris who is the defending State champion and who also has one of the best 800m times in the State this year, or would it be about Jake, who, until last weekend owned the Ohio State outdoor record as a Junior? All three are great athletes and great vaulters. So, I decided to go with an article about all three collectively. Without a doubt, they are the three premier vaulters in Ohio and three of the best in the nation, and they are re-writing Ohio vaulting history.
I am going to save all of my comments and the main portion of this article for after this weeks Regionals in Pickerington and for after the State meet. At this point however, I'll just share with you some of Ohio High School Track & Field history, as provided in a video courtesy of Rob and Bob Banhagel. It speaks for itself!