McCartney vaults into folklore
At 19 and in the biggest competition of her life, Eliza McCartney should have been a bundle of nerves. Instead, she showed poise and demeanour beyond her years to deliver a fairytale bronze medal in the Rio pole vault yesterday.
McCartney, the teenager from the North Shore who hopes one day to be a doctor, is right now one of the premier women’s pole vaulters on the planet after finishing third in a thrilling competition at the Olympic stadium.
After nudging Aussie Alana Boyd out of the bronze spot on a countback at 4.80 metres, McCartney becomes New Zealand’s youngest female medallist at an Olympic Games.
It is also New Zealand’s first ever medal in the event, the third for athletics at the Games (behind Valerie Adams’ silver and Tom Walsh’s bronze) and increases the record Kiwi haul in Rio to 16 medals − four gold, eight silver and now four of the bronze persuasion.
As McCartney started knocking off the heights (a national record 4.50m last November, and then a world junior record 4.64m in December), suddenly these Games became not only a reality, but an enticing prospect. And so the fairytale script continued in Rio, with her family watching in the stands. In a stunning result, McCartney produced an incredible array of clearances to go over the bar at the first attempt at 4.50m, 4.60m, 4.70m and 4.80m.
The last success equalled her national record and personal best.
‘‘I’m so happy, I can’t even talk properly right now,’’ she told Sky Sports afterwards. ‘‘I just jumped amazing. I was so happy with how I jumped.
‘‘I guess as they say the bronze medal is one of the best ones because you just snuck in there and you’re stoked.’’
She couldn’t quite live with eventual winner, Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi, or American Sandi Morris who both cleared 4.85m to set up a duel for the gold. But she wasn’t far off.
The terrific teen narrowly missed with all three attempts at 4.85m − the last two featuring an aborted run-up. But she was agonisingly close with the first, just brushing the bar on her way down.
It was a honourable finish for the Kiwi youngster, just 5cm off the winning Olympic height. If she had nailed that first attempt, she would have walked away with the gold.
And if there was a hallmark of her breakthrough performance, it was the remarkably relaxed and upbeat approach she took throughout the competition..
It was a laidback approach that paid huge dividends for a young woman who just a couple of years was laid low by glandular fever, wondering if she could regain the gusto to compete again.
‘‘I felt like I had nothing to and everything to gain and I really enjoying it,’’ she told Sports.
‘‘We got the pole selection right this time, and once you’re on a roll you really start getting into it.’’ lose was Sky