The women’s pole vault qualifying round was fairly uneventful until the third bar.
The weather was sunny and warm, the winds were a bit on the swirly and inconsistent side, pretty typical for Eugene.
Kyla Davis, Tori Thomas and Megan Houston were unable to clear the opening height of 4.20m. Sydney Horn, Olivia Leuking, Kenzie Beukes, Mason Meinershagen and Jessica Mercier went out at the second height of 4.35m.
The bar went up to 4.50m with 16 women left in the competition, the target field size for finals was 12.
Katie Moon and Sandi Morris entered the competition at this height and cleared easily.
Marissa Kalsey also cleared on her first for a new lifetime best, the biggest surprise of the competition!
Kristen Leland, Gabi Leon, Hana Moll, Amanda Moll, Chloe Timberg, Riley Felts and Emily Grove also cleared the bar and guaranteed themselves a spot in the finals.
Ka’leila Abrille, Kristen Brown and Molly Haywood all missed three times and finished 14th, 15th and 16th.
Surprisingly, Rachel Baxter, Brynn King and Bridget Williams all failed to clear 4.50m, after clearing the previous bars on their first attempts. This left them in a three-way tie for 11th.
It seemed pretty straightforward that we would take 13 to finals and finish jumping, but the officials put the bars back up and began measuring them. It is unclear whether they intended to have the 10 remaining vaulters continue (which made zero sense) or have the three vaulters tied for 11th jump off until one was eliminated (which is petty as hell and bad for the athletes) but the coaches began yelling loudly at the officials, reminding them that we just took 13 to the finals for the men and that it was unfair to the women to make them keep jumping.
After further discussion, the officials finally relented and everyone was able to pack it up and call it a day.
