Competitors will be given a maximum of seven vaults at the event, which starts in Leiria, Portugal, on Saturday.

“All the pole vaulters are not happy with it,” Lewis told BBC Radio Stoke.

“They’re doing it to compress the event, but it can be a spectacular event when the bar gets higher, and to stop that is a bit frustrating.”

Despite the rule change, Lewis is confident that he is jumping well enough to be in contention to win in Portugal.

“I’m coming into good form now and I’m pretty excited about this competition,” added Lewis.

“A win is always good for confidence, but this summer is all about the bigger picture, which is the World Championships (in Berlin in August).”

Kate Dennison will be 28 by the time of the Olympic Games in London in 2012, but it was not until last week that she staked her claim as a genuine contender. During an obscure meeting in Prague that few in the athletics world knew she was even attending, the pole vaulter from Staffordshire entered the history books. “It was cool,” she says of a clearance of 4.51m that secured the British record. “But it was, ‘Right, what’s next?’ ”

Four days later and it is lunchtime at Loughborough University in Leicestershire. Across the way from the student union building, and attached to the side of a track made famous by Sebastian Coe and Paula Radcliffe, among others, is one of the best indoor training centres in the world. Dennison comes bounding in. She suggests we sit on a high jump mat to chat. She was a gymnast as a teenager and now has shown the ambition, determination and talent to put Britain on the map in an event in which we have never made any kind of an impact at world level.

Why? “I’m not sure,” she says. “Everyone regarded what Janine [Whitlock, the old record-holder] achieved as something quite special but you have to look beyond that. Maybe that was my problem for a while. Janine jumped 4.47m. It is no longer good enough and neither is 4.51m, but now that I have jumped higher, I can look towards girls in the rest of the world and not limit myself to simply being the best pole vaulter in Britain.”

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Steve Hooker’s adopted city of Perth is getting a new athletics stadium at Mount Claremont, a boon for the whole sport and offering an even better facility for Alex Parnov’s elite squad of vaulters than the old one at Perry Lakes, the 1962 British Commonwealth Games venue. The new venue will host the 2010 Australian championships and Commonwealth Games selection trials on 16-18 April next.

“Hopefully this new stadium will help retain kids from Little Athletics all the way through and help the sport continue to have a resurgence in WA.

“It’s the first time we’ve had an athletics track in WA which has had lights, so it can host twilight and night competition which we couldn’t do over here before. That will fit in well with the hot summer weather.

“As a venue, it is fantastic. There is a 2000-seat grandstand (named after Shirley Strickland; there is also a Herb Elliott Drive within the centre), and room for another 8000 spectators around the grass embankments. It will be a great venue for competitions like the national championships , which are also going to be the New Delhi Commonwealth Games selection trials, and for future meetings of the domestic grand prix series.

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Amidst the cold and gusty conditions during the 13th Corporate Teams’ National Competitions in Andong, Korea on Wednesday 22 April, a rising star soared above the rest to rewrite the Korean National Outdoor Record for the Women’s Pole Vault.

20-year-old LIM Eun-Ji’s winning height of 4.35m smashed the previous national outdoor record of 4.16 set by CHOI Yun-Hee at the 2008 Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting last September. It also equalled the “B” Entry Standard for the Women’s Pole Vault at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin 2009.

Prior to her 4.35 outdoors Lim had already shown her fine form this year with a 4.24m vault indoors in Tsaotun, Chinese Taipei on 26 March to set what was then the absolute (indoor and out) national record.

“It was cold today with gusty winds, which tightened her muscles and joints,” said her coach LIM Sung-Woo speaking about Lim’s 4.35m vault. “Despite the difficult conditions, she showed great fighting spirit to break the National Record and qualify for the World Championships!”

Berlin will be Lim’s first-ever participation in the World Championships.

Lim first competed in the Pole Vault in December 2007 and could only muster a mere 3.50m at the same competition last year. In October 2008, however, she set her previous outdoor personal best of 4.10 which is the national junior record.

Lim’s meteoric rise in less than 18 months, coupled with her youth and dedication, bodes well for Korea’s aspirations at the 13th IAAF World Championships in Athletics to be held in Daegu in 2011.

While Yelena Isinbayeva’s World record of 5.05m is a tall order for anyone to match, Lim will focus her attention on China’s Shuying Gao’s two-year-old Asian record of 4.64. Based on the progress that Lim has shown, the Women’s Pole Vault in the coming years could be interesting.

Lim also has personal bests at the 100m Hurdles of 14.52 sec (-2.2m/s), Triple Jump of 12.92m (2007), and Heptathlon of 4681pts (2006).

Chelsea Johnson only started Pole vaulting the second half of her senior year, but it did not take long for her to realize her potential. After only a couple months on the pole, she made bars that ranked her as one of the best in the country.

Johnson won the California state meet and with a winning jump of 13-6 at the Golden West, she equaled her high school PR. As a freshman, Johnson competed at NCAAs and raised her PR to 13-10.25. A break-out year for Chelsea was 2004; she finished second at NCAA indoors and she set the NCAA record of 15-0 that outdoor season. Johnson won her first of two NCAA crowns and that helped the UCLA women’s team win team title in 2004.

The 2004 track season did not end at NCAAs for Johnson. She competed at 2004 Olympic trials and finished 4th only to miss the team by one spot. 2005 proved a difficult year for Johnson, but she returned to form in 2006 and surprised all by winning NCAA indoors and setting a new NCAA record. Chelsea also placed second outdoors.