Pole Leaping (Fierljeppen)

Pole Leaping

Article by: © Michael J. Rosen 2010

"Most Fierljeppers Wear Rubber Bicycle Inner Tubes Around Their Ankles. This, Along With Sticky Spray, Gives a Good Grip on the Pole."

- Polsstokbond Holland

Many kids may consider climbing to the top of a telephone pole or a flag pole, but few see these daft and risky dreams through...beyond shimmying a few feet into the air, or sticking a tentative tongue on an icy pole as a wintertime whim.

Spring and summer in the Netherlands present a different story, where climbers scale poles-originally wooden ones-not to retrieve some camper's underpants sling-shot to the top, but for Dutch supremacy. Yep, it's fierljeppen, West Frisian for "far leaping," a sport in which athletes hurl their own bodies...up, out, and over.

A pole as long as 43 feet 6 inches is anchored in a canal and leans towards a dock. A competitor takes a quick sprint across the runway and dock, leaps to grab the pole, and hurriedly climbs to the top as the pole leans forward across the 12-meter pond, before bounding into the sand pit on the other side of the canal. The fierljepper who travels the farthest wins. Think running pole-vault start, rope-climb middle, and long-jump landing.

First recorded as early as 1200, farmers created the idea of fierljeppen when they used large poles to cross waterways that divided plots of land. Some say that poachers developed this technique to steal eggs from farmers, vaulting over and back before a Hollandse Herdershond (Dutch Shepherd dog) bit them in the achterwerk (behind). Even before this, some say that Moses didn't part the Red Sea so much as use his staff to vault across it. (Yes, Moses was also involved with stone skipping. That's why he's so famous!)

Reliable records about the sport date from 1771, and today, competitions remain popular among the Dutch and the Germanic peoples of the Dutch province of Friesland. (Oddly, "Friesland" doesn't translate as "land of fries," although patat-fried lengths of potato typically served with mayonnaise-is a popular local dish.)

In 1957, competitions began in Friesland; the Dutch held a similar competition in 1960. Six years later, the first match between the two regions was held. Currently, Frisian Bart Helmholt holds the world record with a jump of over 68 feet (20.76 meters). That's long enough to clear an 18-wheeler with room to spare.

While the English-speaking world remains unclear about how to translate fierljeppen-pole leaping? canal jumping? ditch vaulting?-it seems clear on what to call fierljeppers who land in the water: Soggy Fries.

Always wanted to slide down poles like a fire fighter? Take the real challenge, and climb up to www.pbholland.com.

"The slower the pole goes to the other side, the more time you have to climb to the top. If you don't have enough speed...you fall in the water. If the pole doesn't go straight to the other side, you lose distance. Climbing is the easy part."

- Pieter Hielema, veteran fierljepper

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