WCH Budapest 23 preview: pole vault

Women's pole vault

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Katie Moon has been the dominant force in the women’s pole vault for a third successive outdoor season. The Olympic champion in Tokyo and the world champion on home soil in Oregon last year, the 32-year-old US vaulter has notched victories on the Diamond League circuit in Doha, Florence and Lausanne and heads the 2023 world outdoor list with the 4.90m clearance that earned her a first US outdoor title on a happy return to Hayward Field on 9 July.

With vaults of 4.82m, 4.81m and 4.80m also to her name, Moon boasts four of the top six marks this year, heading into the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23. However, the former gymnast has been beaten three times, no-heighting at the Drake Relays in May, finishing third behind Australia’s Commonwealth Games champion Nina Kennedy and France’s Margot Chevrier in Paris, and second on countback to Finland’s Wilma Murto in the London Diamond League on 23 July.

Murto cleared a season’s best 4.80m in the English capital and the victory will have provided a timely psychological boost to the 25-year-old who improved by a staggering 13cm to claim the European title with a 4.85m clearance in Munich last year. Making the podium at global level would represent further progression for the flying Finn, who won the European indoor title in Istanbul in March. She finished joint sixth in Oregon last year and equal fifth at the Tokyo Olympics.

For Moon, apart from the chance of landing a first global gold medal under her married name, there is the prospect of becoming only the third woman to win back-to-back world outdoor titles, following in the footsteps of her compatriot Stacy Dragila (1999-2001) and Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva (2005-2007).

As Katie Nageotte, she won on countback in Oregon last year from US teammate and former training partner Sandi Morris, both women scaling 4.85m, with Kennedy third (4.80m), Slovenia’s Tina Sutej fourth and Greece’s former world and Olympic champion Katerina Stefanidi fifth (both 4.70m).

Morris, runner up in the last three world outdoor finals, beat Moon to world indoor gold in Belgrade in March last year but has endured a disappointing outdoor season. The 31-year-old’s season’s best, 4.71m, dates back to the Doha Diamond League meeting on 5 May, when she finished third to Moon and Sutej. Her other Diamond League outings have yielded fifth-place finishes in Florence and Paris, and sixth in London.

Sutej, the world indoor bronze medallist, cleared a season’s best of 4.76m in Doha and the Slovenian vaulter has also finished second in Florence, third in London and fourth in Lausanne. She was second to Moon (4.83m) on the 2023 indoor lists, with 4.82m

Kennedy is just ahead on season’s outdoor bests courtesy of a 4.77m vault that secured victory in Paris. The 2022 Diamond League final winner has also placed third in Paris and fourth in London.

Second to Moon on the world outdoor list in Eliza McCartney, the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist who has been plagued by achilles tendon trouble in recent years. The 26-year-old New Zealander has only one made one Diamond League appearance in 2023, placing third behind Moon and Murto in Lausanne, but nailed a 4.85m vault at Schifflange in Luxembourg on 30 July, her best mark for four years.

Stefanidi has not finished outside the top five in a global final indoors or out since 2015 but the 33-year-old’s stock has fallen somewhat this season. On the Diamond League circuit, she opened with a solid enough fourth-place in Doha but slumped to eighth in Florence and Paris and ninth in Lausanne before rallying to fifth in London with a season’s best of 4.62m.

Canada’s 2018 Commonwealth champion Alysha Newman has cleared 4.73m and Chevrier, New Zealander Olivia McTaggart, Britain’s Commonwealth silver medallist Molly Caudrey and Bridget Williams of the US have all negotiated 4.71m. Williams went higher indoors, 4.77m, while Amalie Svabikova of the Czech Republic, who took European indoor bronze behind Murto and Sutej in Istanbul, cleared 4.72m.

 

Men's pole vault

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Twelve months ago Mondo Duplantis was on top of the world in the metaphorical as well as the literal sense as he headed to the World Athletics Championships in Oregon.

Unbeaten in 2022, the peerless Swedish prince of the pole vault had landed the world indoor title with a world record 6.20m clearance and stood 16cm clear of his closest rival on the world outdoor list. He proceeded to claim his first senior world outdoor title with a world record 6.21m. Silver and bronze went to Chris Nilsen of the USA and Ernest John Obiena of the Philippines with 5.94m.

“I felt so relaxed and calm going into the championships,” Duplantis recalled in a recent interview with World Athletics’ Inside Track.

This time, it’s slightly different. Duplantis goes into the World Championships in Budapest on the back of rare defeat – only his fourth since 2019. Looking hot and bothered in oppressive conditions at the Monaco Diamond League on 21 July, the world champion and world record-holder finished fourth with a best of 5.72m. “It was just a bad day,” he insisted.

The fact is the 23-year-old still leads the 2023 world outdoor list, thanks to the 6.12m he cleared in Ostrava in June. He also, of course, improved his world record to 6.22m indoors in Clermont-Ferrand in February – and he boasts the second best outdoor vault, 6.11m in Hengelo, and five 6-metre-plus outdoor clearances in all in 2023.

The next best on the world outdoor list, KC Lightfoot, set a North American record in Nashville in June, but he and Sam Kendricks, the world champion in 2017 and 2019, finished joint fourth in the US Championships in Eugene on 8 July, failing to make the cut for Budapest.

Of those who could potentially profit from another Duplantis off-day at the World Championships, only Obiena has cleared six metres this year, the man from Manila joining the elite club with an Asian record 6.00m success at Bryggen in Norway on 10 June. Obiena was one of those to claim the Swede’s prized scalp in Monaco, finishing second with 5.82m, the same height as third placed Kurtis Marshcall.

Nilsen took the victory with 5.92m, equalling his season’s best. The US champion has built up a fine major championship record, finishing runner up to Duplantis at the Olympics in Tokyo and at the World Championships last year, and also third at the World Indoor Championships in 2022.

However, Duplantis is a supreme major championship performer, having claimed five successive titles: European, world outdoor and world indoor in 2022 and Olympic and European indoor in 2021. He was 19 when he suffered his last defeat on the big occasion, as runner up to Kendricks at the 2019 World Championships.

“Budapest is the main goal for 2023,” he told Inside Track. “That’s where I want to be at my best. As long as I can get the gold and defend the title, that would make a good year.”

Marschall, the former world U20 and two-time Commonwealth champion from Australia, has had a good year, raising his PB to 5.95m at Sotteville in France last month. So has Norway’s Sondre Guttormsen. He joined the six-metre club in March, scaling 6.00m at altitude at the NCCA Indoor Championships in Albuquerque and won the European indoor title in Istanbul. Outdoors, he has cleared 5.90m - as has Turkey’s Ersu Sasma.

Other possible podium contenders include Zach Bradford and Zach McWhorter, who claimed selection ahead of Lightfoot and Kendricks at the US Championships. They have cleared 5.87m and 5.86m, respectively.

Piotr Lisek boasts a relatively modest season’s best of 5.82m but the 30-year-old Pole – third in 2015, second in 2017 and third in 2019 – showed the glimpse of a return to form with fourth place behind Duplantis, Kendricks and Nilsen in the Silesia Diamond League meeting.

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics