Pole Vault Jacket Japan Record Holder "Sawano Daichi" Desires to Describe vol.1 "It's fun when you are jumping or crossing the bar"

(Photo: Fujitsu Sports - Nano • Association)

- The reason for starting pole vaulting 

Sawano: I like to run long distances from the time of elementary school, and in junior high school, I entered the land section and started long distance in earnest. You had been doing 200 m interval, 10 km run or something. It was not that fast, but I enjoyed running and liked it.

At the time, there was a player who was doing pole vault at the mat at the edge of the ground, somehow I thought that it would be fun. Occasionally I borrowed a pole of high pole jump, I crossed the average table in the school yard with a pole, I played with a pole jumping in the sandpit and trying to jump a bar.

中学1年生の夏、顧問の先生に「ちょっとお前、棒高跳びやってみないか」と誘われ始めたのがきっかけですね。単純に楽しそうだなと思っていたのが一番で、そこに顧問の後押しがあったのは大きかったです。  

Even if it started in earnest, it was almost the same as when I was playing with play. Using a pole in the sandbox, jump as far as possible and fall from the platform to the mat. As I remembered the feeling of jumping upwards making an angle from there, it felt like I gradually be able to jump.

――Advance to land prestige high school

Sawano: When I was in junior high school 3 years I participated in the national competition and I ranked 10th or 11th. The player who won the championship after updating the junior high school record was muscular and tall, and it was totally different from myself, it was totally different from me who was not powerful and legs slow. In junior high school there is little training like trainingI just enjoyed pole vaulting as play. 

In junior high school I experienced until the national convention, I was born a feeling that "In high school I jumped nationwide to win the victory!" So I went to Narita High School which is a prestigious land track in my neighborhood. Mr. Iwai, a junior high school adviser who happened to invite pole vault jumps, was also a graduate of Narita High School, and something
縁を感じましたね。  

――Nationwide championship in high school

Sawano：高校で陸上競技の専門的な練習をし始めてみると毎日が面白かったですね。肉体的にとんでもなくきつかったですけど、とにかく楽しかったです。走り方のドリルだったりとか、体力トレーニングだったり色々なことをやるわけですよ。周りの皆は中学校時代にトップでやってきている選手だったりするので、走るのは自分よりもはるかに速かったですね。部に入った当初、私は女子選手よりも足が遅かったので、一緒に走っても女子の背中を追いながら必死について行くのがやっとでしたが、毎日が本当に楽しかったです。  

当時の私には筋力はなく走るのもそんなに速くありませんでしたが、練習に慣れてくると、ポールを上手く使って高く跳べるようになっていきましたね。インターハイでは2連覇をし、高校記録も2年次、3年次に2度更新しました。10年ほど残った高校記録ですね。記録は5m40でした。     



- Getting to aim for the Olympic Games

Sawano: When I was a primary school student, I had a dream of becoming an Olympic athlete, but I did not know what the Olympic Games or Pole Vault jumps are. Looking at the appearance that many Japanese players such as Mr. Ryoko Tamura of judo and so on at Seoul Olympic are in memory, the middle is in Japan! I felt that the feeling of boiling was amazing. So, when I thought that I wanted to go to the Olympic Games in some competition, I met pole vaulting and I was able to go out to the national convention and when I became the top in the country in high school, I would like to go to the Olympics! I thought. 

高校時代の滝田詔生先生は、室伏広治さんや増田明美さんを育てた方でありました。先生からグラウンドで「澤野お前な、あの2人（全国で1番2番の先輩たち）は5m30を目標にしてるけどお前は違うからな。5m40目指せ。世界目指さなきゃダメだ。」って言っていただいたんですよね。当時の記録はまだ5m22でしたが、不思議と納得することができて、5m40cmを視野に入れ始めるようになりました。  

それでインターハイで高校新記録となる5ｍ40を跳んで優勝した高校3年生の時、周りは「この先10年以上抜かれないだろう」「高校生が5m40跳ぶなんて」という反応でした。ただ、その時同時に行われていた世界ジュニア選手権の優勝記録が5m50位で、5ｍ40だと3位くらいだったので、「このままでは銅メダルしか獲れないし、世界では勝てない」と思いましたね。   


(写真：富士通スポーツ-ナノ•アソシエーション)

- The most fun with pole vaultingI think the moment

Sawano: It's fun when you are jumping or crossing the bar. Pole vaulting falls from a high place, but it does not drop off from 5 m, 6 m, but it falls once it is jumped up. In other words, there is a moment of "zero gravity space" that once the pole is thrown right above it will stop once it falls. That feeling reallyIt seems like I'm flying and I can not help it.

試合会場の中で自分が1番高い所まで跳んで優勝して、お客さんが沢山いればいるほど一緒にその空間を楽しむことができます。歓声と一緒になって跳ぶことができるので凄く面白いですね。  

- About the former world record holder Sergei Bubuka

Sawano: In pole vaulting it is like a god, it was called "birds" and it is truly amazing person. We played games together before and we had various stories while eating. He is obsessed with "winning with pole vaulting" anyway and feels that he seriously considered "jumping with pole vaulting" seriously. There are few players who can mimic that leap.

Continue to vol.2  

澤野大地 (さわの だいち)　
~ Profile ~
Pole vaulted player (Fujitsu affiliation) Lecturer, Nihon University Sports Science Division
1980Born in Osaka Prefecture
出身校：印西中（千葉） 成田高（千葉） 日本大学 
Self Best: 5m 83cm (Japan Record)
Main representative history: Olympics (16 Rio, 08 Beijing, 04 Athens)
World Championship (13 Moscow, 11 Teg, 09 Berlin, 07 Osaka, 05 Helsinki, 03 Paris)


Cooperation in coverage / Nihon University Sports Science Department
Photo courtesy / Fujitsu Sports - Nano • Association
Interview photograph / Hidemi Sakuma