To a railway official, national record holder Madhya Pradesh‘s Dev Kumar Meena’s 5-metre pole looks like an oversized pipe. For an athlete, it is a high-precision, fiberglass-composite instrument engineered to bend under hundreds of kilograms of force but it is surprisingly easy to destroy with a single clumsy bump.
Pole vault controversy: The physics behind a pole
A pole vault pole is a “loaded” piece of engineering. Any micro-fracture or deep scratch caused by sliding against metal crates or being tossed by luggage handlers can lead to a catastrophic snap during a jump.
The “One-Scratch” risk: A single deep gouge from a luggage rack can create a “stress riser.” When the athlete plants the pole to vault 18 feet in the air, that scratch becomes the breaking point.
The “bending” risk: Poles are designed to bend vertically, not to have weight pressed against their middle. In a crowded luggage van, a heavy trunk placed on top of a pole “case” can ruin the calibration of the fiberglass instantly.
Why did the athletes and coach want the poles with them in the coach?
Coach Ghanshyam’s insistence on keeping the poles “above the fans” in a passenger coach was his way of having a constant surveillance as heavy shifting cargo can easily crush fiberglass in a luggage van, something which the athletes can avoid if they are kept in the coach.
There is also a risk of theft from the luggage van. A pole is very hard to replace in the middle of the season because of the processes required to get approvals. Moreover, the loaders who handle the cargo, do not know the value of the pole and may unintentionally cause damage.
Is there a ‘sports freight protocol’ in India?
Currently, India has no dedicated “High-Value Sports Freight” protocol. Dev Kumar Meena’s 5-hour standoff at Panvel, Maharashtra may not be a single isolated incident but a representation of the problems faced by Indian athletes trying to make their name in the sport.