Pole-Vaulter’s New World Record Of Fifteen Feet

Southland Times, Issue 24138, 29 May 1940, Page 10

Pole-Vaulter’s New World Record Of Fifteen Feet

Cornelius (“Dutch”) Warmerdam, a high school algebra teacher, recently pole-vaulted 15 feet—a new record mark. ' . <*■

For 13 years now/ the athletic world has been looking for the man who would attain that height. It was at California’s Angell field that Warmerdam glided over the 15ft mark on his second chance, passing the heretofore amazing mark of 14ft Ilin held and recorded jointly by Bill Sefton and Earl Meadows, of the University of Southern California, in 1937. The-blonde 6ft lin boy who learned to leap on home-made standards in a spinach patch, was not satisfied after

doing what experts, three or four years ago, had said was impossible. Not once, •even when he missed at 15ft 2in, did Warmerdam “tie-up.” . Always unsmiling, he soared by steps until he reached 14ft 2in, where he had a little trouble and needed two shots to make it. Two years ago Warmerdam won the American title, and later toured Europe without suffering defeat. Last season he broke the world’s indoor record at Madison Square Garden, with a jump of 14ft 6Jin. “The first man to clear 15ft” is a title that Warmerdam will wear for the rest of his life.