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Dragila attracting fans to Millrose
NEW YORK (AP) -- Stacy Dragila has taken the women's pole vault to center stage in Friday night's Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden. When the men finish vaulting, the women's competition will start and, with Dragila the heavy favorite, the big question is whether she'll set another record. "She's amazing," Andy Bloom, the fourth-place finisher in the Olympic shot put, said. "It's almost not fair to watch her vault. It's so nice. The rest of the world is playing catch-up with her. She's scary. To come out after the year she had last year and jump 15 feet in her first meet this season was something." Dragila won the first Olympic women's pole vault last year, the first women's indoor world championship in 1997, and the first women's outdoor world championship in 1999. She is the world indoor record-holder at 15 feet, 13/4 inches, and the world outdoor record-holder at 15-21/4. She also has won eight U.S. titles -- four indoors, four outdoors Dragila also was surprised at her 2001 debut at Reno, Nev. "I was shocked," she said. "I thought I would be happy with 14-6." After clearing 15-0, Dragila had the bar raised to a world record 15-3. She didn't come close on her first two attempts, then barely missed her third try, hitting the bar on the way down. Unlike Bubka, who improved the world record a total of 35 times, indoor and outdoors, boosting the mark by about a half-inch each time, Dragila has no qualms about raising it by big increments. "A lot of people have different philosophies," she said. "At Reno, they were not looking for high bars, but for entertainment. We were there to perform. The pole vault is so exciting that a lot of people like to watch." That doesn't mean Dragila just has to entertain. She thinks she is capable of clearing 16 feet, a height she expects to attempt this year, when she will try to sweep the world indoor and outdoor titles. Dragila says she once cleared 15-8 in practice. She also went 15-5 in an unsanctioned meet on a California beach. "I was nervous, but it felt great," she said of he 15-8 clearance. "If I can move up on the pole, maybe it (16-0) will happen." Dragila has been using a 14-foot pole, but might try one of 14-6 length at the Millrose Games. Because of the fans' interest in the women pole vaulters, much of it generated by Dragila, Millrose meet director Howard Schmertz decided to let the women follow the men -- for the first time -- in the competition. "Everyone who's coming to Millrose is asking me if Stacy Dragila is competing," Schmertz said. So even though the men's field includes the 1-2 Olympic finishers -- Nick Hysong and Lawrence Johnson - along with American record-holder Jeff Hartwig, they will start competing before much of the crowd has arrived -- just as the women have done the past three years, when Dragila won twice. Other Olympic gold medalists entered include 400-meter relay runners Bernard Williams and Ken Brokenburr, both in the 60-meter dash; Jerome Young, a 1,600-meter relay runner, in the 400; Monique Hennagan and Jearl Miles-Clark, women's 1,600 relay runners, in the 400 and 800, respectively; and high jumper Charles Austin, the 1996 winner at Atlanta. Other entries include Jamaica's 40-year-old sprinter, Merlene Ottey, winner of eight medals in six Olympics, in the women's 60; Marla Runyan, legally blind and an Olympic finalist at 1,500 meters, in the women's mile; four-time Olympian Johnny Gray in the 800; and Sweden's Kajsa Bergqvist, the world's top-ranked women's high jumper and Olympic bronze medalist. The Millrose Games is the opening competition of the four-meet indoor Golden Spike Tour, which also includes the Tyson Invitational at Fayetteville, Ark., Feb. 10; the Adidas Golden Spike Invitational at Pocatello, Idaho, Feb. 17; and the USA Championships at Atlanta March 2-3. The men's and women's winners of the tour, based on a point system, each will receive a new car.
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