Pole vault bronze for Caudery as Moser turns the tables

Briton misses out on another golden moment at European Championships while Swiss seizes her chance

It says much about Molly Caudery’s rapid rise that a bronze medal in the women’s pole vault final at the European Championships in Rome could be viewed with a degree of disappointment.

The Briton went into the championships having jumped higher than any other athlete on the continent but her biggest clearance on Monday night (June 10) was 4.73m, which left her third as former European Indoor champion Angelica Moser took victory with 4.78m, a height that equalled the Swiss national record, while two-time European champion Aikaterini Stefanidi landed silver on countback.

Expectations had been high for Caudery, who had lost just once all year and captured the world indoor title in Glasgow, but she could not find the flowing form that had taken her to a European leading 4.84m at the end of last month.

All had looked well when she easily cleared her opening height of 4.58m, three centimetres higher than she managed when finishing seventh at the last edition of these championships, in Munich, two years ago. The early departure of defending champion Wilma Murto at 4.58m also aided Caudery’s cause.

The British champion missed her first attempt at 4.68m but then went straight over convincingly second time around, that pattern repeating itself at 4.73m.

All the while, Stefanidi – the former Olympic and world champion – was putting together a blemish-free series, her first error of the evening only arriving at 4.78m.

By that stage, however, Moser had shot into the lead. The gamble from the Swiss to pass a second attempt at 4.73m when she promptly went clear at the higher height. It turned the tables on her opponents, with both Caudery and Stefanidi passing after one unsuccessful vault at 4.78m.

Could anyone clear 4.83m? Caudery did go high enough but clipped the bar with her elbow on the way over, while it was a task too far for all of the final three and the finishing order would remain unchanged.

“As much as I probably shouldn’t be, I am a little disappointed,” said Caudery, whose PB this time last year was 4.60m and now sits at 4.86m. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be a bronze medallist at the European Championships then I would have been over the moon. [But] I have these new expectations for myself and I think other people do too.

“But it’s okay. I should not look down on a bronze medal. The last year, but especially the last…