Britain’s new golden girl
GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY CAUDERY LIVES HIGH LIFE Pole vault’s world champion is now eyeing Olympic gold
IN one heroic giant leap, Molly Caudery cleared 4.8m to become the world pole vault champion and the new golden girl of British athletics.
After winning Britain’s first ever world title in the event with a leap that was “like jumping through the second floor of a house”, as one fan put it, 23-year-old Molly now has her eye on the Olympics in Paris.
Talented Molly, who graduated with a BSc from Loughborough last year, and has 224,000 followers online, said: “Prior to this year, my sights were always set on LA 2028.
“But things have really snowballed, I’ve built so much confidence. Taking that into Paris, I’d love to get a medal.”
And she had good news for the 500,000 UK ticket holders heading to the Olympics this summer. She said: “Some people wouldn’t like the pressures that come with it. But I thrive under pressure.”
Her triumph at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow at the weekend is all the more incredible when you consider she almost lost a finger in a weight lifting accident in 2021. It put her out of action for nine months. The details are not for the squeamish.
She said: “As I brought the bar down, my finger caught between where you rack it and the bar.
“It was 90% off. It was holding on by the skin on the side. That was a pretty big setback that I managed to come back from.”
Molly grew up in Redruth, Cornwall, and as a schoolgirl earned extra pocket money as a waitress in the family business, the Peppercorn Cafe, in Perranuthnoe.
Her dad Stuart Caudery, 54, says: “Now she enjoys baking to relax and is really good at it. She was the chief scone maker at the cafe and loves baking cakes. There has been talk of the Great British Bake Off – she would love to do that.”
Stuart, and Molly’s mum, Barbara, 53, were in Glasgow to cheer their daughter on, alongside Molly’s boyfriend, high jumper Joel
I’ve built so much confidence.. I’d love to win medal in Paris
MOLLY CAUDERY ON HER HOPES FOR 2024 OLYMPICS
Clarke-Khan, 24. Molly’s family are all involved in athletics, and her brother Fynley, 25, is also a pole vaulter. He has posted 4.72m.
Stuart, a builder, coached Molly when she was a teenager and still volunteers with Cornwall Athletic Club. He said: “I was a decathlete, so you pole vault for that, but we have all done it.
“I met my partner [Barbara] at the track and she was a hurdler who also did pole vault and my son is jumping 4.72m. That is less than Molly now, so he is after her.” Stuart told how his daughter, a daredevil as a youngster, tried “multiple” athletics events, as well as surfing.
He said: “She tried high jump and long jump, but pole vault was the one for her. She just loved it. “She always enjoyed the outdoors. She would watch us on the
track, and would write her own training programmes. She has done really well this year. It has just clicked, something has changed.
“She hit 4.8m or above in four competitions this winter so she was really confident going into Glasgow.”
After her glory indoors, Molly is not fazed about moving into the outdoor arena for the Olympics.
Stuart said: “We don’t have any indoor facilities for pole vault here in Cornwall. We just get on with it, you have to train in cold weather.
“When we go outdoors, people complain about the wind and Molly says, ‘What wind?’.”
In her final training session before the 2018 Commonwealth Games, when she was England’s youngest athlete at 17, it was snowing. Stuart said: “There is no reason why she cannot do better than she has done already. She is a level-headed person, she knows what she has got to do, she will continue in that way.”
Molly came fifth in those 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, but at the 2022 Games in Birmingham, she won silver.
She had won the 2015 School Games in Manchester, and in 2018 went to study at Miami University. Stuart said: “Then Covid hit and we got her home to finish her studies.”
Yesterday, Molly was off to Italy’s Amalfi Coast with boyfriend Joel.
She will head to New Zealand for Olympics training after celebrating her 24th birthday on March 17, back in the UK with her family. Molly’s online posts, posing in beachwear and lingerie, have convinced some followers that she is a model.
Laughing, her dad said: “I can see why they might think that, and it may lead to other things later in life.
“But they are just her way of relaxing. She has many talents along with the pole vault.”
Mum Barbara said: “Molly has always just been our little girl and to think of her as world champion, it might take a little while to adjust to that. We’re very, very, very proud.”
Karen Robilliard, track and field chairman at Cornwall Athletic Club, shares that sense of pride in Molly.
She said: “It has been a whirlwind for her. But what she has achieved is phenomenal. She and Joel always have time for the youngsters when they come down. She wants to set an example for the next generation.
“She does just that. It is so important that we keep girls in sport and she is great at that.”
Molly, who already has a marketing deal with Adidas, can count athletics legends Dina Asher Smith and Katarina Johnson Thompson among her online fans.
And she revels in the spotlight. Molly said: “I think social media is such a growing factor in sports.
“A lot of people don’t enjoy that. But I actually find some enjoyment in the creativity of it all.”