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| from the Philadelphia Enquirer |
Don Bragg also had the highest vault ever on a metal pole
15' 9 1/4 ".
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| Don Bragg AP Photo |
Don Bragg was involved in a multitude of events and had a public friendship with Cassius Clay later Muhammed Ali that developed in Rome during the Olympics where they both were champions. He was AD at Stockton State College in New Jersey. He ran a children's camp in New Jersey for years before moving on to California where he spent his last years.
Video Rome 1960 Don Bragg 4.70 (15' 5") , Ron Morris 4.60 (15' 1 1/8")and Eeles Landstram (FIN) 4.55
Rome Polevault
Note. Finishing 4th in the PV that year was the Puerto Rican left hander, Rolando Cruz, also of the Villanova Wildcats, making it a rare 1, 4 finish for a US college. Ron Morris had competed for USC in his college days. The third place finisher Eeles Landstram had competed for the U. of Michigan.
To describe that Rome competition we have to go back in our vaults and dig out Roy Mason's account of that day as derived from the pages of Track and Field News.
POLE VAULT
"An apology is necessary here. The trials were held Monday, the fifth day of the games, and your overworked reporter missed them. Chief among the causalities were Melbourne silver medalist George Roubanis of Greece and UCLA and the US’s Dave Clark who injured himself warming up and could do only 13-9.
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| Dave Clark |
"Now let’s fast forward to today. After nearly all the vaulters pass the opening heights (the first was 12-5), the competition begins in earnest at 14-1 1/4. At 14-5 1/4 world record holder Don Bragg misses his first attempt. He appears nervous. Apparently the vaulters weren’t on the clock, as Hal Bateman writes that Bragg was at the top of the runway for over five minutes before making a successful second attempt, thus producing a chorus of whistles (the equivalent of booing in the US) from the heavily European crowd. He wouldn’t miss again for awhile."
"With the bar at 14-11, the field had been pared to seven and Puerto Rico’s Rolando Cruz is the leader by virtue of an unsullied performance. This height eliminates three more vaulters and now only Bragg, Morris, Cruz and Finland’s Eeles Landstrom remain. The next height, 15-1 1/8 (4.60), drops Cruz and Landstrom with the Finn getting the bronze medal on misses."
"Reminiscent of the US trials, all we have left are Morris and Bragg with Bragg leading on misses. The US vaulters agree to raise the bar to 4.70 (15-5) instead of the planned 4.65. Bragg is up first. He puts the pressure on Morris by clearing on his first attempt. Now the USC grad will have to not only clear this height, but the next to win. After two bad misses, he comes close, but a miss is a miss and the gold medal goes to Tarzan as he watches."
"With the competition decided, Bragg has the bar raised to 4.82 (15-9 3/4) in an effort to break his own world record. He has two close misses and, with darkness and cold settling in, he crushes the bar on his third attempt. The competition is over after six hours and 46 minutes. The Americans have gone 1-2."![]()
Below is the IAAF press release commemorating Don Bragg
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The IAAF is deeply saddened to hear that 1960 Olympic pole vault champion Don Bragg died on Saturday (16) at the age of 83.
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| Ron Morris |
"With the bar at 14-11, the field had been pared to seven and Puerto Rico’s Rolando Cruz is the leader by virtue of an unsullied performance. This height eliminates three more vaulters and now only Bragg, Morris, Cruz and Finland’s Eeles Landstrom remain. The next height, 15-1 1/8 (4.60), drops Cruz and Landstrom with the Finn getting the bronze medal on misses."
"Reminiscent of the US trials, all we have left are Morris and Bragg with Bragg leading on misses. The US vaulters agree to raise the bar to 4.70 (15-5) instead of the planned 4.65. Bragg is up first. He puts the pressure on Morris by clearing on his first attempt. Now the USC grad will have to not only clear this height, but the next to win. After two bad misses, he comes close, but a miss is a miss and the gold medal goes to Tarzan as he watches."
"With the competition decided, Bragg has the bar raised to 4.82 (15-9 3/4) in an effort to break his own world record. He has two close misses and, with darkness and cold settling in, he crushes the bar on his third attempt. The competition is over after six hours and 46 minutes. The Americans have gone 1-2."
Below is the IAAF press release commemorating Don Bragg
The IAAF is deeply saddened to hear that 1960 Olympic pole vault champion Don Bragg died on Saturday (16) at the age of 83.Born and raised in New Jersey, Bragg was still a teenager when he established himself among the world’s elite. He vaulted 4.42m indoors in 1954 at the age of 18, ending the year as the sixth-best vaulter in the world.
One of the last leading pole vaulters to use a metal pole, Bragg would often perform better indoors than outdoors. He set a world indoor record of 4.81m in 1959, adding two centimetres to the long-standing record that had been set 16 years earlier by pole vault legend Cornelius Warmerdam.
That mark remained the best of Bragg’s career, but he went on to set an outdoor world record of 4.80m to win the 1960 US Trials, making him the favourite for the Olympic Games in Rome later that year.
He lived up to expectations in the Italian capital and at the end of a competition that lasted seven hours, Bragg won gold with an Olympic record of 4.70m.
Standing 1.90m (6ft 3in) tall, Bragg earned the nickname ‘Tarzan’ and he would often celebrate his victories with a Tarzan yell from the podium.
Long before the discipline became a standard event for women, Bragg’s younger sister Diane learned how to vault and in 1952 cleared 2.59m, which stood as an unofficial world best for 17 years.
He is survived by his wife Theresa and four children.