World record may be next target for vault star Kennedy
Every since sharing gold with American friend and rival Katie Moon at last year’s world athletics championships, Nina Kennedy has thought about little else than standing atop the Olympic podium on her own.
So now that lofty goal has been achieved, the 27-year-old needs a new goal.
How about the legendary Yelena Isinbayeva’s world record of 5.06m, which has stood untouched since 2009?
Kennedy’s personal best currently stands at 4.91m, just one centimetre more than she jumped to win history-making gold at the Stade de France on Wednesday night.
“I don’t know if anybody watched my competition at the London Diamond League (which she won won with 4.85m in early July) but I had really, really good attempts at 4.95m,” she told reporters straight after her Olympic triumph.
“That was probably the first time that I thought to myself, ‘you know, maybe the world record is possible’.
“Tonight was about winning the gold.
“And you know, I’m still quite young in the scheme of things.
“So maybe in the next few years, that world record will be on the cards.”
That’s for next year. Or the year after.
The immediate priority is sharing what was only Australia’s second-ever Olympic pole vault gold with family and friends, many of whom were at the Stade de France on Wednesday night.
And letting her hair down.
“Being from Australia there was no-one in Budapest (when she won the world title in 2023), there was no-one at the Oregon world championships (in 2022 when she won bronze), except for my mum,” she said.
“So to come here and just look in the crowd and see 20, 30, 40 of my friends and family and just people that I’ve known over life is just so special, so overwhelming.
“It was just nice to look into the stadium. It gave me peace, it gave me calm, and it just gave me this energy and this belief that I could do that tonight.”
The only other Australian to win Olympic pole vault gold was Steve Hooker back in 2008.
It was what inspired Kennedy to first take up the exacting discipline as an 11-year-old.
Moon claimed the Olympic silver medal on countback from Canadian Alysha Newman after both cleared 4.85m.
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