Anything Can Happen | Nina Kennedy's Road to Tokyo
Published Tue 27 Jul 2021
Nina Kennedy will headline Australia’s Pole Vault contingent in Tokyo when she makes her Olympic debut following a blistering domestic season.
With six Australian teams already under her belt, Kennedy’s road to Tokyo has been long and personified by a familiar rallying call “anything can happen”.
Starting her Olympic journey as a Little Athlete at UWA, Kennedy dominated both on and off the track, before she found her calling with Pole Vault.
“I loved Little Athletics and doing all of the events, so when I started Pole Vault, for me it was just another event. But it quickly became more. It felt like I went to an elite level quite early, I was put into a training squad with an Olympic Gold Medallist. I knew I could be good at the event, so it was like, let’s do this.” Said Kennedy.
Kennedy took full advantage of her squad’s depth and was quick to rise to the challenge. Junior and Senior National medals were followed by selections in the Australian Youth and Junior Championship teams before she thrilled the nation with a World Junior Record in 2015.
The 2016 Rio Olympics was quickly becoming a possibility for the West Australian, however, history would tell a different story.
“I broke the World Junior Record [in 2015], which would have qualified me for the Olympics. So come the Olympic year, I needed to qualify again. I didn’t do it. I was young and immature. I had just turned 18, I’d just left school and I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“There was so much going on in my life at that moment and still being super underdeveloped as an athlete and a person. I missed out. It sucked.”
While painful, Kennedy admits that over time it became integral to her current-day success.
“In hindsight, I am glad that I had that experience. I learnt a bunch of lessons that you are only going to learn by missing out. That’s when I realised you can be a great junior, but to be a top-performing senior is years and years of work. Nobody can step into being a great senior athlete.”
Starting a new Olympic cycle, Kennedy buckled down and started to focus on the mental game, as well as the physical.
“I feel into quite a depressive state, which is not surprising. You are an elite athlete; you are pushing yourself and so many emotions are coming up. I just didn’t know how to deal with them, which is totally normal. A lot of athletes deal with it. I spent a lot of time developing my mental health, so when 2018 came around I was jumping well.”
2018 would see Kennedy return to the elite level with selections in the World Indoor Championships and Gold Coast Commonwealth Games teams. An impressive 8th at the World Indoor Championships was quickly followed by her first international medal with a bronze at the Commonwealth Games.
“I knew I could win a medal, but it was going to be a push. Some of the girls in that field had cleared 4.90m, so I knew that I had to get it right on the day. And I did, in front of a home crowd which is the most amazing thing ever.”
Since then, Kennedy has continued to build, producing a thunderous 2020-21 domestic season. Looking back on the difference, Kennedy recognises that self-reflection has been key.
“After the COVID-19 lockdown, I asked myself some tough questions. Mainly, why am I doing this? Why am I in this sport? I shifted my approach, in a way that I have never done before. It was all about taking charge of my journey to the Olympics.”
What followed was a masterclass. Seven Olympic qualifiers in five months, her second National title and a new Australian Pole Vault record, with all roads leading to Tokyo.
“To officially be a part of the team is still crazy, I’m slightly nervous. It’s a combination of nerves and excitement.”
“Like any person that goes to the Olympics, you aren’t going just to have fun. You are going there to dominate and win a medal.”
“Pole Vault is such an interesting sport because people can jump out of their skin, or they can no height. Anything can happen, you are learning all the time. Anything can happen on the day and I just know that if I can jump my best on the day, anything can happen.”
Now with less than a week before her Olympic debut, Kennedy has revealed on social media that her final preparations for Tokyo have been anything but ideal, suffering three muscle strains in three months.
“These last 3 months leading up to the Olympics have been the most challenging times I’ve experienced as an athlete.”
“Elite sport is so damn cutthroat. I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened, though… I’ve always dreamed of going to the Olympics, so regardless of a preparation that was so far from what I had imagined, I’m going there to do my best, and to leave everything I have out on the track.”
While not ideal, no one can fault Kennedy’s ever-growing maturity and ability to deal with the ebbs and flow of elite sport.
If Kennedy’s tenacity to tackle the best and worst of the sport is anything to go by, she will continue to be awe-inspiring both in Tokyo and beyond.
Nina Kennedy will line up for the qualifying round of the Women’s Pole Vault alongside Liz Parnova on Monday 2nd August from 6:20 pm WST.
To watch all of the athletics action, head to Channel 7’s coverage of the Tokyo Olympics and follow Athletics West and Athletics Australia’s social media channels.
By David Smith, Athletics West
Photo Credit: Fred Etter
