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.

U.S. Olympic pole vaulter April Steiner posted this video on YouTube of her undulating, gyrating and altogether dancifying as a response to a similar routine posted by teammate Stacy Dragila a few months before. What has sparked this vicious and rhythmic (for white girls) dispute? Judging from the videos, it's the work of one enabling female coach who laughs a little too much and a little too shrilly. Perhaps only because she knows the other end of this conflict leads to the athletes impaling each other with their poles. Violently, to be clear. She's just intent on debunking the charges of lesbianism in female coaching as emphatically as possible. 

[You Been Blinded]