Katie Moon – thoughts on 2023

Katie Moon – thoughts on 2023

Katie Moon entered 2023 as the reigning Olympic and World Champion.  This summer, she won the three competitions that mattered most to her, in chronological order: the U.S. Championships, the World Championship, and the Diamond League final.  She competed 10 times with a third, a second, a no-height blip, and seven wins.  Indoors, she had recorded three wins out of four, including the U.S. Championships.  She was second in the Diamond League in Zurich, which, perversely, is listed as an indoor meet being held in a railway station!

I first met Katie in a transit lounge in Abu Dhabi in 2017. As we arrived in Doha together for the Diamond League, I became aware for the first time of the challenge involved in being a traveling pole-vaulter.  While I had mild anxiety about whether my suitcase had made the connection, all Katie’s attention was on her poles.  Even when they were safely located, there was a small issue: the minibus was too small to accommodate the poles.  Eventually, we set off with the poles sticking out of the minibus window – the only way it had been possible to get them partially into the vehicle!  While I found this all perplexing, Katie shrugged it off as just a normal day at the office!  I have had the privilege of having many conversations with her in many different countries since then.

Coming back to 2023, I wondered if she might be a little blasé about being US champion, given that she had won it three times previously but not a bit of it: “I definitely don’t expect anything in the sport. It absolutely means so much because the US women are the best in the world. I mean, we had all four women in the final at worlds, so not just to be making a team for the US, but to be winning trials and US champs is pretty incredible and definitely not something I take for granted”.

After a solid (4.81) win at the Doha Diamond League, she recorded a “no height” at her next event in LA.  Her initial, hesitant answer was: “I’m somebody that I really don’t like to blame facilities or situations like that”, before admitting that there were several reasons why she was not at her best that day. “What I will say was I just felt like there was something a little bit off, and I’m not sure, but it very well could have been the recent PRP injection. I had a…