Pole Faulting

There are times in a man’s life where he must approach adversity with determination and resolve, and there are times when he must simply void feces into his little track shorts and hope he doesn’t die.

By way of Fourth-Place Medal comes this video of Russian pole vaulter Dmitry Starodubtsev attempting a 19-foot jump at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics in Deagu, South Korea, and having the worst thing that could ever happen to a pole vaulter happen to him. Okay, somebody could walk up to you with a gun before you vaulted and kill you, but keeping things in the universe of poles and vaulting, this is the worst.

Stradodubtsev (whose last name literally means “star of Dubstep”) hurt his hand in the fall and had to withdraw from the competition, but assuming he had just as good of a chance of flying into the crowd and hurting his everything or ending up with a jagged pole point in his forehead he got off lucky.

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