Katie Moon on the World Championships

Katie Moon is the two-time World Championship gold medalist and Olympic champion for the Men’s pole vault. Stuart Weir wrote this piece on Katie Moon and her incredible 2023! 

Katie Moon on the World Championships

Katie Moon entered the World Championships in Budapest in August 2023 as the reigning World Champion but as a short-lived reigning champion.  With the 2021 World Champs Covided out and postponed for a year.  The 2021 World Champion had only one year to bask in that glory.

Nonetheless, she arrived in Budapest as World Champion – did that give extra confidence or add a pressure, I wondered? “A little bit of both, but I would say more confidence. I think it just solidifies to myself, ‘OK, you are good at this’. You can go out there confident.  You know what to expect, but you know anything can happen. So be ready for that. But you know how to execute.   You know how to make things happen.  You know how to win. Does that mean I’m going to win every time? No, but I know how to handle it going out there, and it does give me a lot of inner confidence, and I’m very grateful for that. But it’s taken years, and it’s taken a few big wins to really feel this way. But it definitely adds some pressure for sure, but I like that, and I think I really try to see it more as OK and this gives confidence.

On paper, the qualifying looked comfortable, 3 jumps boom, 3 bars, and through to the final, but as Katie pointed out, that was more work than she had expected: “What’s interesting is that it was the most I’ve ever jumped in a prelim. So that was actually more taxing than any previous qualification at a championship that I had ever experienced. It’s always great to do whatever the minimum is, but for example, the year before, it was one and done, and so was Tokyo, and so to come into the qualification at Budapest and have to jump three times meant we were out there for longer and three jumps in a prelim setting is definitely a bit more – I don’t want to say emotional – but it’s just more taxing and more exhausting and so again, I very glad to just get to do whatever the minimum was that day.  But it was it was a bit more taxing than I had expected it to be because the girls were just jumping so well. It was just a reflection of how good the women’s pole vault is becoming. The depth that’s there. A lot of women set PBs to make it to the…