IF I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW

by Katie Nageotte, 2020 Olympic Gold Medalist

If I were to write a letter to my 12 year-old self, I would tell her that our pole vault success story will not be immediate. It will take longer than we think. Much longer.

Our pole vault journey will be a roller coaster of ups and downs. On the road to achieving our goals, we will have to get out of our comfort zone. We will question ourselves and our ability. We will have years of anxiety and fear around the vault. We will deal with negative teammates and roommates, and people will doubt us. We will doubt ourselves. We will deal with body image issues. We will not be good enough on talent alone, and we will need to work harder than we ever thought we were capable of. We will experience the lowest lows.

And, we will find the greatest happiness we ever imagined. We will create friendships that will last a lifetime and be shown how phenomenal our support system is, through the good and the bad. We will gain a self-confidence and self-worth we never thought we would feel, and because of those amplified emotions, we will achieve our biggest dream. The tears, the fears, the miserably hard workouts, the no-heights, the bad practices, the injuries, the critics, the doubts - that’s how we grew.

We are stronger than we think. Let’s keep being us, and let’s always trust our gut - it’s never wrong. Never forget how much we love what we do, and never forget how fun it is to clear a bar, no matter the height.

The last piece of advice I want to leave us with is this: pole vault is not who we are, it is what we do. We are, and always will be, worth more than our results.

Photo credit Katie Nageotte social media