Jenn Suhr competes at the London 2012 Olympic Games (© AFP / Getty Images)
Jenn Suhr, who won Olympic gold in 2012 as part of a highly successful pole vault career, has announced her retirement from competitive athletics.
The 40-year-old, whose professional career spanned 17 years, also claimed the world indoor title in 2016 and secured three global silver medals – at the 2008 Olympics and World Indoor Championships as well as at the 2013 World Championships.
Her 5.03m vault in 2016 remains the highest ever indoor clearance and she achieved her outdoor best of 4.93m in 2018.
Jenn Suhr next to the scoreboard after clearing 5.02m (© Kirby Lee)
Starting out as a collegiate basketball player from Fredonia, New York, Suhr took part in track and field events such as the hurdles, high jump, javelin and relays to keep fit but only took up the pole vault at the age of 22. She won the first of her 17 US titles within the first year of her pole vault career and would go on to set a total of 12 national records.
Suhr made her World Championships debut in Osaka in 2007 and reached the final. The following year she became a world indoor silver medallist in Valencia and emulated that by claiming Olympic silver in Beijing.
Guided by her coach and husband, Rick, Olympic gold in London would follow four years later and she surpassed five metres for the first time in 2013, soaring clear at 5.02m at the US Indoor Championships in Albuquerque in the March. No other athlete has ever gone higher indoors.
Five months later she claimed world silver in Moscow before winning the world indoor title on home soil in Portland in a 2016 season that saw her improve to 5.03m in the January.
“The words will come to me soon but my heart and soul are ready for the next phase of my life,” she wrote on social media.
“Pole vault unlocked more than I could have wished for and let me experience more than I could have dreamed of. I started pole vaulting as a senior in college, unaware of where this life would lead and provide for me. I will forever be grateful.
“I say goodbye, not with a heavy heart, but with an enthusiasm I haven’t felt in some time.”
World Athletics
