NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Former South Dakota track and field standout Derek Miles has continued his outstanding 2003 season by winning the pole vault at the Millrose Games in New York on Feb. 7. Miles won the Fred Schmertz men's pole vault with a clearance of 18'8.5 to unseat American record holder Jeff Hartwig as the champion in the event.

It is the second major competition that Miles has won this winter. In January 2003, Miles won the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nev., for the second straight year. Miles went 5.80m (19-0 1/4) to win the meet on Jan. 20, 2003, defeating Hartwig and the 2001 World Indoor silver medallist Tye Harvey. Hartwig and Harvey both went 5.70m (18-11).

For the past year and half, Miles has trained in Jonesboro, Ark. at the Earl Bell Training Center, with Harvey and Hartwig, under the guidance of former world record holder Earl Bell.

Miles hopes to use the performance at the Reno Vault Summit and Millrose Games to vault him to a spot on the U.S. Team for the World Championships this summer in Paris, France.

Last February 16, 2002, Miles recorded his personal best, going 19-1 1/4 (5.82m) at the John Dalton Memorial Track and Field Meet held at the DakotaDome. The vault, which established a DakotaDome record, was the second-best indoor mark in the world at that point in the season. It broke Miles' own Dome mark of 18-4 1/2 set in 1999. Miles won the NCC pole vault title in 1996 and finished fifth at the 1996 NCAA Division II indoor meet. He was third at the 1994 NCAA Division II outdoor nationals. He was an alternate on the U.S Olympic Team in 2000.