Katie Nageotte: Leading the Way

Katie Nageotte

Leading The Way

By Grant Overstake

Who will become the next Olympic women’s pole vault champion?

With her vault of 4.94 (16-2.5) on June 11th, Katie Nageotte currently holds the world lead.

One can already imagine Katie on the podium, waving and smiling to a worldwide audience on television and thousands of her social media followers online, with a smile that has become a trademark tweet for one of the sport’s most popular vaulters.

But before Katie finds Olympic glory in the Land of the Rising Sun, she must do one thing she’s never done before, which is make the U.S. Olympic Team. Since a heartbreaking 5th place finish at the Trials in 2016, she has been on a burning quest to redeem herself.

In an Olympic season like none other, when Tokyo 2020 became Tokyo 2021, “up and down” doesn’t begin to describe the roller coaster ride she’s been on.

The movie of Katie’s Olympic quest begins in the family room in Olmsted Falls, Ohio late in the last century. Zoom in as a spirited girl with long arms and spindly legs fidgets with excitement watching the Olympic Games unfold on television with her father Mark, mom Diane, and her two siblings Andy and Emily. Even then, Katie felt the Olympic flame burning in her heart.

“Ever since I was young, I’ve always wanted that [Olympic glory],” she recalled. “As I got older and was good at sports, it was like, ‘Oh, okay, this is something that maybe... maybe could happen for me.’’’ “Maybe” was enough to keep the flame burning.

Flash forward to a montage of images of Katie growing up as a budding gymnast, and then as a pole vaulter, with her father driving her back and forth an hour each way to practice. Then, in a heartbeat, there’s an empty chair in front of the TV as the family of five becomes only four.

No one can prepare for the loss of their dad from a heart attack when she is only 16 years old. Somehow, Mom keeps it together, keeps working. Katie says she was an angel in a family fraught with angst and woe.

After her father’s passing, Katie writes “Dad” on her track shoe for the first time, as she will before every competition from then on. A closeup of her foot on the runway shows that “Dad” is still a driving force, written on her Nike shoes.

In college, Katie became the two-time NCAA Division II pole vault champion and a three-time

All-American. She turned pro in 2013 and set her sights on the Olympics in Rio, 2016. But it wasn’t to be.

Steadfast Jenn Suhr won the U.S. Olympic Team Trials by clearing 15 feet, 9 inches. Sandi Morris was second (15-7) and Alexis Weeks was third (15-5). Katie had her best day in the sport but finished fifth (15-1).

Failing to make the team despite performing so well was a wake-up call for Katie. Things would have to change if she was going to make the Olympic team in 2020.

“After 2016, I knew that [the Olympic quest] wasn’t over for me, but I also knew that I couldn’t do it with what I was doing at the time, because I’d had a great day that day, and still didn’t make the team. It was very humbling and that forced me to get out of my comfort zone in a way I never would have. I’m glad things didn’t go my way at the Trials because I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am today.”

The quest began anew when she hired a new coach, Brad Walker, and moved first from Tennessee to Washington state, and then to Georgia in 2017. The rest is history in the making.

“If I’d made the team in 2016, I probably would have just stayed a 4.60 jumper, been complacent and not sought out Brad. But he has turned me into not just a different athlete, but a different person. I am so grateful for that. Even if it doesn’t go my way in a couple of weeks, it’s the best thing I ever could have done, moving to work with him.”

Mentally tough, Walker is known for overcoming adversity in his career. He was a 9-time USA Track and Field pole vault champion. A flashback shows him missing the pit and hitting his head during warm-ups at the 2007 World Championships in Moscow. After being knocked unconscious, he woke up to win with a clutch clearance of 5.80 (19-0) on his third attempt. He set an American record of 6.04 (19-9) in 2008.

But despite Brad’s success in the sport, Olympic glory eluded him. Walker was a member of Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and the 2012 Olympics in London, where he placed 12th. In two other Olympic bids, he didn’t make the team.

Olympic glory has evaded a cosmos of stellar athletes, but Brad and Katie are two amazing vaulters with zero Olympic medals between them. Katie turned thirty on June 13 and is young enough and along with Brad, hungry enough, to change that. They went to work in a converted jeans factory in Cartersville, Georgia. More speed work without the pole. More Olympic lifts. More focus on the runway. And it worked!

A stronger, tougher, better Katie shocked the sport in 2018 by winning the national indoor meet in Albuquerque with a vault of 4.91 (16-1.3). Katie made three PRs on that day of days. She captured the gold medal, took her first shot at the world record, made the national team, and signed a pro contract with Nike. All in the same evening. She was in the whirlwind, living her dream.

“In the moment, you don’t realize that things like that just don’t happen every day,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like that since, and that’s okay. Maybe that’s what I’m chasing, a day with three PRs. It’s what I worked for.”

With the pandemic looming, the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo were postponed until 2021. Meets were canceled. Stadiums sat empty. Athletes withdrew to their protective bubbles in training facilities around the world. Katie trained at the old jeans factory with Brad and a handful of other vaulters. She was in the best shape of her life on that day in December 2020, when she tested positive for Covid-19. Even though hers was a relatively mild case, she was sick and bedridden for days. A devastating blow for an athlete whose Olympiad was only seven months away.

She recovered physically from the virus, but the mental fog known to follow the illness continued to cloud her future. She couldn’t connect the dots on the runway, her timing was off, she felt somehow disconnected from her body.

And then the fog began to lift. Things began to click again. Mt. Olympus was in sight. “I’m not oblivious to the fact that we were very lucky,” she said. “It really worked out. I like to think that it was all part of God’s plan.”

Katie has vaulted remarkably well in several outings since her recovery. She has proven to herself that she is fully recovered from her illness and that she can do amazing things, with or without the roar of the crowd.

“I think that’s the best thing about working with Brad,” she said. “He has made it so logical. Whether it’s practice or competition, every time you come down that runway, you’re trying to execute things the same way. Even without a crowd, without the adrenaline, it’s the same thing every time. It doesn’t matter what’s happening around me, I’m dialed into those cues.”

As a professional pole vaulter, Katie has flown around the world with her poles in the baggage compartment. But a short flight from Cleveland to Atlanta in mid-May ended disatrously when all nine of her poles arrived at the baggage claim area in the Atlanta airport, snapped in half like toothpicks.

Imagine a pro golfer losing their clubs just before the Master’s, and then quadruple the emotional angst, because a golfer doesn’t depend on that trusty putter to carry them 16 feet in the air like Katie does. The vaulting community rallied, with three pole manufacturers rushing to provide replacements for her to try. The Trials were only a few weeks away.

On borrowed poles, Katie vaulted into the world lead with a leap of 4.93 (16-2) in Marietta on May 23rd. Five days later, in Doha, Qatar, she won her first Diamond League meet of her career with a clearance at 4.84 (1510.5), which was equaled by second place finisher Sandi Morris.

Back home, Katie planned two more warm-up meets before the Olympic Team Trials in Eugene. The winds in Nashville and the meet in Atlanta were perfect opportunities to prepare for the worst, and the best things to come.

At the Music City Track Carnival held June 6th in Nashville, Tenn., stadium flags were blowing erratically as vaulters faced unpredictable winds on the runway. It was a go-no-go situation as Katie and her coach pondered whether to jump at all. But since weather conditions are likely to be just as unpredictable at Oregon’s Hayward Field, where rains soak and winds swirl, Katie was cleared for takeoff. She and her coach were well-pleased with 15-11 (4.85).

“In Eugene, you never know what you’re going to get, so it was well worth it,” she said.

After several test flights, Katie decided to jump on ESSX poles.

Katie’s final tune-up on June 11 was to be held at Marietta High School, but thunderstorms moved the event indoors to the Atlanta Track Club’s facility. Instead of battling bad weather again, this was a chance to test her new poles in perfect conditions, and she made the most of the opportunity.

At the Atlanta meet, there was a full field of women: Sandi Morris, Alina Macdonald, Jill Marois, Chloe Cunliffe, Anicka Newell, and Robin Bone to name a few.

Katie set a new personal record with a world-leading vault of 4.94 (16-2.5) and just missed a new world record of 5.04 (16-6.4).

Katie put the event in perspective in an email. “Brad was very excited! He liked my attempts and liked the fact that I wasn’t on my biggest poles.”

At the Trials, the pole vault will be contested in a qualifying round on June 24th and the final round on June 26th. The field of 24 vaulters will be whittled down to the top 12 on day one. After a day of rest, the event final will be contested June 26th. The top three will become Olympians.

While the height Katie must clear on day one to advance to the finals will be a foot or more lower than her world-leading PR, the qualifying round is as nerve-wracking as it gets in pole vaulting, she said. Katie and Brad are doing everything they can to keep the Trials from becoming an ordeal.

“Coach and I are talking about the strategy of that prelim,” she said. “There is going to be an automatic qualifying height, where you jump that one time, you advance. My guess is it would be like a 4.60 or something. Brad had to do that back when he was at the Trials and it was a whole different kind of stress. So, I probably wouldn’t opt to do that. I’ll come in a little bit lower, to make sure I’m on it. It will make things a whole lot smoother, even if I have to take one more jump to get in.”

Katie and Brad will fly commercial to Eugene. Her new poles will fly on a separate cargo plane to ensure they arrive safely when it matters most. It’s unclear how many spectators will see the U.S. Olympic Trials or the Tokyo Olympics itself, due to covid restrictions. But Katie’s mom and siblings will be cheering from the stands at the new Hayward Field.

Katie is ready to make her childhood dreams come true.

“Two months ago, I was still doubting myself and I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to feel good on the runway again because that mind body connection was just so off. I’m just ecstatic that it’s coming together, and that it’s coming together now.”

Katie with her high school, college, and professional coaches.

Photo taken by Katie Nageotte

All other photos credited to Adam Barcan