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Vaulters take flight in Jersey Jumps Beach Vault in Seaside Heights

BY GRAELYN BRASHEAR • STAFF WRITER • AUGUST 7, 2010

SEASIDE HEIGHTS — People riding Casino Pier's Skyscraper weren't the only ones defying gravity in Seaside on Saturday.

As hundreds of spectators looked on, more than 230 pole vaulters competed all day on a wide swath of sand just north of the pier during the second annual Jersey Jumps Beach Vault.
By 11 a.m., the beach bristled with poles as athletes waited to sprint, plant and leap. Crowds groaned at misses and cheered for triumphant jumps.
Dan Bertolami was on the beach before 7 a.m., setting up the three pits where thousands of jumps would take place before the day was out.
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Seaside Beach Pole Vault
Bertolami, a 1984 Penn Relays pole vault champ, runs Ipolevault LLC, a training camp for vaulters based in Tuckerton. He had always wanted to organize a summertime meet, he said, and last year he and two area coaches teamed up to make it happen. They pooled their equipment, borrowed what they didn't have and opened the competition up to high schoolers, college students and other jumpers.
"We were like, "We hope we get 30 people,' " said Bertolami's wife Grace, who helped run Saturday's event. "And then 125 showed up."
This year, almost twice as many jumpers registered, from teenagers to retirees.
A big portion of the athletes were teenage girls, Dan Bertolami said, bringing home the fact that pole vaulting is taking off among young women. Many started as gymnasts, but grew out of that sport, he said. Their core and upper body strength and superior balance and coordination mean many of them become standout vaulters.
Such was the case with Stephanie Skove, the 17-year-old Eatontown resident and soon-to-be senior at Monmouth Regional High School, who placed 13th at the National Scholastic Sports Foundation's national championships in Greensboro, N.C., in June.
On Saturday, she competed early with other top-seeded high schoolers. Resting in the shade of a tent between jumps, a smiling Skove said Saturday's event was more fun than an average track meet, and the crowds gathered around the pits and peering down from the boardwalk didn't bother her.
"I think it's more exciting being in front of a lot of people," she said. And the DJ blasting Top 40 hits was a plus, too. "You don't get that at a track meet, so that gets a thumbs up."

(ASBURY PARK PRESS STAFF PHOTOS: KEITH J. WOODS)