Australian clears 4.90m to as defending champion Katie Moon takes silver and Alysha Newman bronze
Nina Kennedy shared gold with Katie Moon at the World Championships in Budapest last year but this time the victory was hers alone as the Australian cleared 4.90m with runner-up Moon having a best of 4.85m.
The competition was missing British duo Molly Caudery and Holly Bradshaw after they bombed out in qualifying. But this was still a high quality competition with Kennedy pulling out all the stops to win as she soared over 4.80m, 4.85m and 4.90m on her first attempts to win in a season’s best.
Alysha Newman cleared a Canadian record in third with 4.85m while European champion Angelica Moser of Switzerland was fourth with 4.80m, the same height as fifth-placed Amálie Švábíková who jumped a Czech record.
It was a tricky competition for the athletes, too, with a huge field of 19 and a delay in the middle of the competition when officials had problems with the equipment.
Katie Moon (Getty)
“Budapest was one of my favourite competitions but myself and Katie decided we didn’t really want to share a medal again in Paris,” said Kennedy. “The crowd was insane tonight. I’ve been in a few big competitions before but this was the loudest.”
Moon said: “I already had one outright Olympic win (from Tokyo) so I was in a different position and Budapest was quite unique. Tonight I was really grateful to simply win a medal, though, after the year I’ve had.”
Nina Kennedy and Katie Moon (Getty)
The American added: “Also, I woke up today and felt awful. So today I just had to stay as focused as possible, especially on this lightning fast runway.”
Newman said: “It came down to the top 19 girls in the world tonight and the ones who could maintain their tunnel vision the best.”
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