Every athletics fan knows that Sergey Bubka holds both the indoor and outdoor pole vault World records with a huge lead on the next best vaulter in the all time lists. The Ukrainian, now an IAAF Council Member, also holds the best “Brother & Brother” mark of 12.00m together with his older sibling Vassily (5.85m in 1988) whom their caring mother used to send to training with “little Sergey” so the elder brother would keep an eye on him.
But who holds the best “Brother & Sister” Pole Vault mark? The reply is interesting in view of the World Junior Championships in Grosseto this summer. Richard Spiegelburg and his sister Silke, nine years his junior, together boast a total of 10.18m.
Silke, the youngest winner at the World Youth Championships in Debrecen in 2001 and European Junior Champion in Tampere in 2003, improved her personal best in Wesel on Whit Monday from 4.20m to 4.33m.
In the same jumps-only meeting, Charles Friedek, the 1999 Triple Jump World Champion came close to his personal best landing at 17.40m and Bianka Kappler (6.71m) became the first German long jumper to meet the Olympic qualifying standard. All participating athletes, incidentally, donated their appearance money for the construction of an indoor athletics hall, which apparently was not to the liking of all managers!
The Spiegelburgs and their two older brothers learned the basics of pole vaulting from their father in Lengerich, a small town in north Westphalia.
Ansgar Spiegelburg, who was originally destined to become a farmer and manage the family estate but finally studied as a teacher, took up the Pole Vault accidentally, because former National Head Coach Walter Simon lived in the same town, Georgsmarienhütte, rather far from the German Athletics training centres.
“Unfortunately my teacher did not live to see the greatest achievements of my children. He died shortly before Richard became German champion with 5.85m and Silke became World Youth champion with 4.00m in 2001.”
The German athletics family keeps its fingers crossed for Silke Spiegelburg in Grosseto, as she has a bad souvenir from another World Junior Championships; the youngest member of the German team at the 2002 edition fell ill with dengue fever in Kingston. Already debilitated by her illness, she could only manage an eighth place before having to take a long break to recover her health.
As Canada (following on China) was one of the countries touched by the SARS epidemics in 2003, a worried Ansgar Spiegelburg did not allow his daughter to make the trip to the 2003 World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, as she had only just recovered from the last effects of dengue fever. Silke was replaced by Lisa Ryshich, who took the title back to Ger-many with a 4.05m clearance.
Just how good a chance Silke Spiegelburg had to repeat her Debrecen title in Sherbrooke became clear shortly afterwards, when she became European Junior Champion in Tampere with 4.20m ahead of Floe Kühnert, the 2002 World Junior champion.
Now she has improved 13 centimetres on that height. Her first missed attempt was at 4.43m, as she tried to better the German junior record held with 4.42m by Yvonne Buschbaum, now a 4.70m specialist.
If nothing goes wrong, Silke Spiegelburg will be joined in Grosseto as one of the best medal hopes for Germany by a neighbour: Annika Suthe, from the athletically inconspicuous Mettingen, has already obtained the Olympic qualifying standard in the javelin with a throw of 61.14m.
Gustav Schwenk for the IAAF
