I asked what the literal translation is and noone could give me an answer. The sport orginated from farmers who had to cross lots and lots of streams on their property, so rather than building lots of bridges they adapted pole vaulting - but in order to cross really wide streams they learnt to balance the pole vertically, climb up to the top and then land it on the other side. Pretty amazing!
So a friend from work invited me to compete in a team with him and one of his friends. I didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be quite a big carnival and lots of fun! Many people were giving it a go, and there were quite a few spectacular crashes (one guy got carried away in a stretcher...)
The locals were quite excited to have an international competitor in the event and I managed to get interview with the Eindhoven newspaper! Our team ended up winning and I got the furthest jump of 8 metres (the 'professionals' can do 20 metres!).
To top it off...
