At 74-years-old, Atascadero resident Jan Johnson has won a bronze medal, set a world record and helped train and mold the next generation of pole vaulters over the past 50 years.
It started when he was young, jumping since he was 10 years old in the south side of Chicago.
“I started jumping hay bales with a pitchfork.”
After becoming a three-time NCAA Champion at the University of Alabama, Johnson qualified for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany where upon his arrival to Europe, he learned that his poles, which had fiberglass, were banned, forcing him to use shorter poles than the ones he had been using. As he recalls, he had to borrow poles from former Olympic gold-medal decathlete Bruce Jenner and friends from the Canadian team. Despite the setback, he finished with a bronze medal with a jump clearing 17 feet 5 inches.
“Frankly, I'm proud of two things. First thing was the highest I'd ever jumped from that short of a run on that little of a pole. I was very lucky to medal because two of the other really good guys were hurt."
However, the controversial banning of his poles wouldn't be the worst thing that happened to him at the Olympics.
On September 5, 1972, the Munich Massacre in the Olympic Village occurred when eight members of the Palestinian militant organization Black September killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Johnson was right near it all.
“There were gunshots in the morning about 4 a.m., still dark outside and something was going on.”
While his Olympic experience still doesn’t sit well with him, it’s his impact on the sport after he stopped competing in 1975 that he looks back on proudly.
When asked what makes him most proud about his time as a coach and athlete in the sport, his answer was, "My influence on people. No question.”
Johnson is the founder of Sky Jumpers Vertical Sports Club out of Atascadero where for the past 50 years in his backyard, hundreds upon hundreds of campers from all over the Central Coast would learn the art of pole vaulting.
“It was his location, his help up there being a place to go to in Sky Jumpers,” said longtime friend and Arroyo Grande High School track and field coach James Brown.
“Go out there and change the mindset," Johnson added in regards to the mission of his backyard setup. "The dynamic of the whole sport is really important.”
Some of the world-class pole vaulters that he coached were 1997 World Championships bronze medalist Dean Starkey (19'5"), Greg Duplantis (19'0")1988, Simon Arkell former Australia Record Holder (19'4) 1991, Shayla Balentine former National HS record holder (13'8) 2001, and his daughter Chelsea Johnson (15'61/2") 2009 World Championships silver medalist.
Over those 50 years, Johnson says the sport has gotten better thanks to the improvements in equipment and safer thanks to changes that he helped implement with the poles and the size of the pit.
“It's gotten better and better and better and better and better so that people aren't breaking poles so much in today's world.”
The current world record holder and two-time gold medalist Armando Duplantis beat his own world record (20 feet 6 inches) on Tuesday in Paris. Johnson coached his father, Greg Duplantis, in college at LSU.
