Tears as pole vault Games hopes crash
The shoulders sagged, the reality hit and the tears flowed. Eliza McCartney’s Olympic dream was over and the emotions were just too much to contain.
The 24-year-old Aucklander, alongside national squadmate Olivia McTaggart, had her final crack yesterday at making it to the Tokyo Olympics in the last of three straight winter series pole vault meets at the AUT Millennium indoor facility.
Both had to clear 4.70 metres, and both failed at 4.50m as the realities of tough, disrupted buildups came home to haunt them. For McCartney, in particular, it was a gut-wrenching outcome.
Five years ago she had won a fairytale bronze medal as a 19-year-old rookie sensation at the Rio Games. Now she doesn’t even get the chance to go back and have another crack at catching lightning in a bottle.
A big part of that is the chronic Achilles tendon problem that has plagued her for the past three years. Yesterday she struggled to even complete her shortened runup, let alone launch herself up and over the heights required. McCartney gritted her teeth and tried hard, as did McTaggart, who came awfully close to clearing 4.50m on her final attempt, but in the end the circumstances were just too much to shake off.
The truth is McCartney is a shadow of the pole vaulter she was from 2016 to 2018 when she soared to the very top echelons of her sport. Her debilitating condition just has not allowed her to either train or compete at anything resembling her best.
‘‘This year has been really tough,’’ McCartney told the Sunday Star-Times after taking some time to compose herself. ‘‘I wanted to stop a number of times in the last six months but something makes you just keep going. It’s because it’s not over until it’s over.
‘‘I wanted to feel like I’d given it everything I had.’’
McCartney never got any rhythm going in this lastchance event.
She came in at 4.30m, and only got things together on her final attempt to clear the bar. But at 4.50 she had a first-up misfire, could not even get off the ground on her second crack and was well off on her final roll of the dice.
McTaggart came a lot closer. The 21-year-old, who had to shake off a fractured hand suffered in March when a pole snapped on her and then an ankle injury, got over 4.30m comfortably at her second attempt and then had three fairly decent shots at 4.50m – just 5cm off her PB.
On her third she got the height, but just clipped the bar on her way down and watched in agony as it teetered and then fell to also extinguish her Olympic hopes.
McTaggart, too, felt the emotions unfurl at the end and had to be consoled by her support crew. She also felt the abject disappointment.
‘‘Sport is tough and it’s emotional and I was just happy to be out there with Eliza going for those heights and giving it everything,’’ she said.
‘‘My last jump was one of the best I’ve done . . . I just wish I’d maybe done it a little earlier. I was really close, [the bar] stayed on for about a second, gave me some hope and then crushed it.’’
Both will now take breaks before returning for a big 2022 season that will include potential shots at both the world indoor and outdoor championships and the Commonwealth Games.