NEWMAN BUILDING VALUABLE RESUMÉ TO GOLDEN PATH
Ontario pole vaulter aspires to lead way and jump 5.0 m in time for 2020 Olympics
If Canadian track and field goes looking for a new face, pole vaulter Alysha Newman is almost ready for her close-up.
The 23-year-old from London, Ont., is the national record holder indoors (4.70 metres) and out (4.75 m), the reigning Commonwealth Games champ, and has quickly become a Diamond League staple in one of the premier field events.
Those are all valuable resumé items for anyone who aspires to lead the way.
She’s also smart enough to know that her credentials still fall short of billboard material. “I have to keep quiet right now because I’m not yet where I want to be,” she said Monday from Toronto. “For me to get that gold medal at worlds and to get that gold medal from the Olympics, break the world record, then I could be that spokesperson. Then I could say ‘listen, people told me this was impossible and I just made it possible.’
“I need value behind my name.”
She is building exactly that, step by step, vault by vault, meet by meet. Newman has moved the Canadian outdoor record from 4.61 m to the current 4.75 m, which she replicated in dramatic, gold-medal, Commonwealth Games-record fashion in Australia last month. And so far this young season, only two women, Americans Sandi Morris and Jennifer Suhr, have gone higher than Newman. All three will compete at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore., on Saturday. It’s the only Diamond League meet on North American soil. It’s also going to be Newman’s first meet on new poles furnished by Air Canada after her entire arsenal was broken en route to Doha, Qatar, for the first Diamond League meet of the season earlier in May. She wound up vaulting there on borrowed poles, and cleared just 4.54 metres. But it was good enough for seventh place and two important Diamond League points, which she needs to stockpile in order to qualify for the lucrative Diamond League Final in August in Zurich.
The winner there cashes a cheque for $50,000 US, while second place is worth $20,000, third is $10,000 and there is money all the way down to eighth.
At last year’s final, Newman tied for second place with Morris, set the Canadian record at 4.75 m in the process and took home US$15,000.
So she’s obviously a big event performer. That’s the kind of reputation that vaults you into the spotlight, where she truly wants to be.
“That’s definitely what I want. I do see myself being one of the faces of track and field.” That duty and privilege currently belongs to sprinter Andre De Grasse, proud owner of multiple Olympic and world championship medals. He is struggling to hang with the world’s elite this season, perhaps an indication that he isn’t completely healthy. His season best time is a pedestrian 10.15 seconds in the 100 metres. Fellow Canadians Gavin Smellie (10.01 and 10.10), Aaron Brown (10.12) and Bismark Boateng (10.14) have all been quicker. That’s another indication that every athlete in every event has their ups and downs. Newman has moved well past the disappointment of Doha and is full of optimism for the remaining Diamond League meets in which she expects to compete, including Oslo, Monaco and Rabat, Morocco.
“Of course you have to be invited,” she said. “So if something were to go horribly wrong at the next couple of meets, then it would be like, ‘we don’t want to waste a spot on Alysha.’ ” Seems unlikely. She’s in game shape, mentally sharp and history tells her that dramatic improvement awaits this season. “I can see myself jumping (4.85 or 4.90) this year, just because I know every year I vault I have gotten 10 centimetres better, except for the one year that I was injured. In my mind I’ll say I want to jump .90 and if I land on .85, I’ll be satisfied, you know. And I’m hoping that in two years I’ll be jumping 5.0, by the Olympics.”
That’s the long-term goal. Tokyo 2020 would be her second Olympic Games, and she says with a laugh that she’d like to compete in five.
She didn’t qualify for the final in Rio in her Games debut two years ago, but she’s a far better, more seasoned performer now, as evidenced by her latest Games performance in Australia. “This was a stepping stone, winning that gold medal at Commonwealth. To know I’m in the first year of my prime, and to know what I can do in the next four years is exciting.”