Alana Boyd’s Olympic aspirations have suddenly rocketed toward the medals after she broke the Australian pole vault record with the sixth-highest jump in the world in the past 12 months.
Boyd broke her personal best by 10 centimetres to leap 4.76m at an interclub meeting in Perth on Friday night and break Kym Howe’s national record of 4.72m.
Her progress has been remarkable over the past four years, climbing from 4.20m at the 2007 world championships to 4.30m at the 2008 Olympics, 4.40m to win the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 4.50m at last year’s world championships.
Only three women – Jennifer Suhr (4.91m and 4.79m), Fabiana Murer (4.85m) and Martina Strutz (4.80m and 4.78m) – have jumped higher than Boyd in the past 12 months.
The Queenslander’s now among the elite and Friday night’s leap makes her a serious medal contender at the London Games.
“Going in to London with a jump ranked that high is a big confidence boost,” she said.
“It’s been a long time coming, I’ve been jumping consistently in the 4.50s and 4.60s for a long time. I’ve done the hard yards, now it’s paid off and there’s more to come.
“Right now I’m enjoying the high I’m on. It’s been something my coach and I have all season been aiming at, to jump into the 70s. And I’ve got lots of time now to tweak a few things and go even higher at the Olympics.”
While her 4.76m is the best outdoor jump in the world for the eight weeks we’ve had this year, there’s been some serious jumping indoors in Europe where Russian Yelena Isinbayeva broke her own world record with a leap of 5.01m in Sweden on Thursday.
After next week’s Olympic selection trials in Melbourne, Boyd will get a better gauge of where she stands when she competes against Isinbayeva and the world’s best at the world indoor titles in Istanbul from March 9.
“It’s the first time I’ve been in the position I can be competitive with the top girls in the world. It’s exciting and it’s daunting,” she said.
“There’ll be 15 or 16 girls who have all jumped 4.52 or better, it’ll be exciting and I’m looking forward to the challenge of seeing how I respond to those girls jumping high.”
After a relatively modest patch by her standards, Isinbayeva let the world know she was back in form in an Olympic year with her 5.01m in Stockholm on Thursday.
Isinbayeva’s outdoor best over the last 12 months matches Boyd’s 4.76m, well short of the Russian’s outdoor world record of 5.06m.
