BEIJING — Jeff Hartwig is the oldest man in the pole-vault field here and the oldest person on the U.S. Olympic track-and-field team, but he’ll keep flying as long as he’s able.
Hartwig made the Olympic team in 1996, and he’s back 12 years later, still getting high on the feeling he gets when he hits one just right, more than 18 feet in the air.
“If I thought I could go 10 more years, I would,” said Hartwig, 40. “I love the sport that much.”
There isn’t a lot of fame or fortune in pole vault, but there is a lot of fun. Hartwig, who lives in Jonesboro, Ark., makes enough off the sport that he doesn’t have to work a regular job, and at least one guy in Denver envies him.
Pat Manson, who still holds the Colorado prep record he set at Aurora Central High School, is the same age as Hartwig and had many battles with him. At a meet last winter, they traded masters indoor world records. Manson went 17 feet, 7 inches, then Hartwig went 18 feet.
Manson had hopes of making the Olympic team, but he strained his groin last spring while moving a vault pad at a youth clinic he was conducting. That was the end of his Olympic aspirations, at least for 2008.
“The physical demands are just really high on your body,” Manson says. “Just to make an Olympic team is an amazing achievement. To do it at age 40 is even more so. We’re long jumpers that do a big gymnastics move in the air, with the precision of a golf swing.”
Hartwig attributes his longevity to staying injury-free, if not pain-free.
“My body hurts all the time,” said Hartwig, who lives in Jonesboro, Ark. “Nothing’s broken. I don’t have any injuries, but little things hurt all the time.”
After falling short of the Olympic team in 2004, Hartwig said there was no way he’d be back this year. It wasn’t that he wanted to quit — he just didn’t think he’d still be competitive.
“I never thought, as a 36-year-old, that it would be possible to be anywhere close to this level as a 40-year-old,” he said. “Yet I attribute my success as a 40-year-old to the fact that I just never quit.”
Manson has jumped in excess of 18 feet every year since 1985, hooked on the fun of it.
“You run down and you have a big takeoff, then you swing your body up to vertical, then you have all this energy stored up in the pole and in the momentum of your body,” Manson said. “Then it all comes together when the pole launches you off the top. When you do it right, it’s just a real thrill.”
Hartwig was second at the Olympic Trials. Brad Walker, who was third, won the gold medal at the world championships last year and is considered the favorite here, coming into the meet with the best vault in the world this year, 19-93/4. Qualifications are today.
Hartwig’s best this year is 18-8-3/4.
“I enjoy not only the training, the competition, the travel, just being around all the other pole vaulters,” Hartwig said. “My best friends in the world are the other vaulters. If I could go 10 more years, I would.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
