McCartney’s dad had good feeling from start

WILLIAM McCartney’s evening didn’t start too well in Rio when he found himself sitting at the wrong end of the stadium to watch his daughter make her first Olympic appearance. It’s fair to say it finished a lot better.

William, wife Donna and their two sons Finn and Hamish solved their problem with typical Kiwi ingenuity when they manoeuvred their way into much more adjacent seats to the pole vault competition where they would soon be rewarded when Eliza McCartney went on to secure a fairytale bronze medal.

McCartney, just 19, became New Zealand’s youngest female Olympic medallist, the first in pole vault and the 16th of these Games − a mark now in record territory.

William, speaking to the Sunday News from his Rio hotel in the early hours of the morning, said he had a good feeling from the moment he saw his daughter come out to compete.

‘‘She usually looks over and waves, but she was looking straight ahead and I thought ‘she’s pretty focused’. With the first vault I could see she was looking really good. She looked really focused and relaxed and the nerves weren’t getting to her.

‘‘I was thinking maybe she’s in with a chance of top five or six, and when she cleared the 4.70 I thought ‘that’s odds-on for a medal now’.

‘‘I don’t know how she does it, but she manages to combine both enjoyment and intensity at the same time, and pulls it off. I don’t know where those genes come from.’’

But the North Shore lawyer and his wife, who is a doctor, have a fair idea where McCartney got her inclination towards pole vaulting from.

William was a high jumper back in his pomp, and Donna was a competitive gymnast. As it happens, they’re the two key attributes for being a decent pole vaulter. ‘‘We’re taking all the credit,’’ he said with a smile.

Eliza was always sporty, and was a handy netballer and high jumper before turning her attentions to the pole vault while still at Takapuna Grammar.