This was published 11 months ago
‘All-time clutch performer’: Why new world champion Nina Kennedy can vault to Olympic gold
By Michael Gleeson
Budapest: Nina Kennedy looked at Katie Moon, a half-smile spread across her face.
“Hey girl, you maybe wanna share this?”
Australia’s Nina Kennedy (right) celebrates with American Katie Moon after they both won gold medals in the women’s pole vault in Budapest.Credit: Reuters
Moon’s face broke open, she smiled and nodded. And with that, one gold medal became two.
Australia’s Kennedy shared the pole vault gold medal with American Moon. Both are world champions.
Unable to split the pair on countback after they both missed their jumps at 4.95 metres, officials gave the athletes a choice – continue to jump, and gradually drop the height until a lone winner could be found, or share it.
“We were out there for such a long time; we were pushing each other to the absolute limit. Katie is the world champion, she is the Olympic gold medallist, I didn’t think she would want to share it. I thought we might need to keep jumping,” Kennedy said afterwards.
Overcome with emotion, Nina Kennedy celebrates her gold medal.Credit: Getty
“But I kind of looked at her and said ‘Hey girl, you maybe wanna share this?’, and the relief, you could see it on her face, and you could see it on my face, and it was mutual.”
Had they chosen to keep jumping, they would have had one more shot each at 4.95m. Then the bar would have dropped to 4.90m, and so on until a clear winner could be found.
But Kennedy had nothing left. She had broken two national records – at 4.85m and 4.90m – to get to the position where silver was safeguarded and gold was available.
Her legs were cramping. The heat and humidity in Budapest’s national stadium has been overwhelming for days, and after 2½ hours of gruelling contest, they had nothing left.
Kennedy said she immediately had thoughts of high jumpers Mutaz Barshim, of Qatar, and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, who became the first pair to share a gold medal under the new rules for field events when they agreed to call a truce in their event at the Tokyo Olympics.
To split the medal, both athletes must agree. So, Kennedy suspected that Moon, who has jumped 4.95m before (it’s her personal best) and is the reigning world and Olympic champion, might want to continue competing.
Before Moon’s final jump, Kennedy went to the officials to check what would happen next if the American missed. She thought maybe if Moon missed, she would have her on countback, but the official said no, there would be a jump-off, or they could agree to split it.
Kennedy was in no doubt: if she could stop jumping she would, well, jump at the chance.
Katie Moon (right) congratulates Nina Kennedy as they share the gold medal in the women’s pole vault at the world championships in Budapest. Credit: Getty
“My legs were cramping, I had never done a competition so long and so intense before, and she felt exactly the same, so we were so happy to stop,” Kennedy said.
“It took us a while to decide and all the cameras were around us and the officials were around us, but you could see the relief in our faces.
“We are [friends but] fierce competitors. She is an Olympic gold medallist, I thought she might have said, ‘Let’s keep jumping’. But when I floated the idea, she was like, ‘Yes!’
“I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Yes? OK’, so we did it ... I was like: ‘Girl, are you sure? You’re the bloody GOAT [greatest of all time], are you sure?’”
Nina Kennedy flashes her golden smile.Credit: Reuters
In the end, their choice was a no-brainer. A gold medal shared is still a gold medal, after all, and Moon was just as happy as Kennedy to share the title.
“When the final started, I didn’t think about how sharing a gold medal would work for me, but now I am completely satisfied. What a battle it was, oh my ...” reigning champion Moon said.
Britain’s 2012 Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill said on the BBC coverage she loved the rule change that allowed competitors to split medals.
“I am a big softie, it is so beautiful, it really displays what our sport is about,” Ennis-Hill said.
“[We’ve seen] two epic performances, and they’ve both come away with that gold medal.”
Having entrenched herself as Australia’s greatest women’s pole vaulter, Kennedy can now realistically aim to break five metres and win gold in Paris at next year’s Olympic Games, her coach Paul Burgess said.
“I just think she is one of the great all-time clutch performers. She amazes me. Just because it was Nina, and she was performing good even though she hadn’t done a really big one, I knew she was saving it for the world champs. She just knows how to turn it on,” he said.
“Of course, [five metres] is something she wants ... and she is capable of five metres. That’s one of her main goals, among a bunch of other things. It’s really hard to do, but I now think that nothing is beyond her. She’s a champion.
“We are aiming to win Paris. You just don’t know how often these moments come, but we’re not going to aim for less than this. We are more than happy to aim big, we don’t think it’s delusional. These are our goals.
“To aim for anything less would be cheating ourselves.”
Between her jumps, Kennedy was a tortured figure, unsure what to do with herself. Before Moon’s second last jump, she sat on the track with her back to the runway.
She would sneak the occasional peek at the big screen, but didn’t have to watch Moon jump to know what had happened – the crowd would tell her each time how high Moon had risen.
“It’s so hard because if she clears, you have to jump again, so it is this weird balance of watching, but [knowing] I need to focus on myself,” Kennedy said.
“But I don’t want to look like a bitch; you have to clap, you have to watch, but it is this weird thing – you are also trying to fix the technical things with the coach. There is so much going on, there are races going on as well.”
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.