2018 Bauhaus Galan Diary: Sandi Morris' excellent week

Sandi Morris, photo by Stuart Weir

Sandi Morris

Sandi Morris has had a good week. She won the Diamond League Pole Vault in Oslo on Thursday with 4.81. Then three days later she won the promotional Pole Vault competition in Stockholm with 4.86. Events which are not official Diamond events are, apparently, now called "promotional". Well to be precise, her week has ended better than it began as Air France lost her luggage on the way to Oslo.

Of her victory in Norway she said: ""My winning jump was my best jump of the day. I got it right on the runway, was able to execute well a full jump. Last year 4.80 was rare. This year I'm more consistent. It's a regular thing for me. I want to jump 5 meters soon, good things are coming. I stopped jumping at 4.87 tonight because it was a tough day with lot of wind and I was tired and did not want to hurt myself". Incidentally the victory in Oslo was hard-fought. Read more at

https://www.runblogrun.com/2018/06/-sandi-morris-takes-pv.html

As well as the reasons given above, Morris had a half an eye on Stockholm, where the promotional event included an incentive for anyone who broke the stadium record of 4.85 set by a certain Yelena Isinbayeva in 2008.

Morris summed up the today's Stockholm competition: "I felt really good. I had two aims: to jump 4.86 to break the meeting record and get the diamond; and to get the world lead as well - which I did not quite get. But as I had three good attempts at 4.94, I feel confident going into US Championships". |By the way, Jenn Suhr holds the World Lead with 4.93, set in Austin in April.

Of competing twice in four days, she explained: "Sometimes I find it hard but fortunately in Oslo I didn't have to take too many jumps because I shut down after I'd won knowing that I needed to have energy to jump today. I think I just had seven jumps in Oslo were sometimes you can have 14. Also the wind was a problem in Oslo. Seeing what happened today I think it was a good plan".

Interesting that Morris referred to 14 jumps as she once told me that she is a vaulter who seems to get better - rather than more tired - as the competition goes on. In fact she once had a PR with her 16^th jump. She told me: "In practice I will take 20 full-approach jumps - that is a lot of jumps. I have had a PR with my 16^th jump in a competition. For some reason I was making everything on third attempt but I just kept on fighting and suddenly I hit two PRs in a row. I am pretty proud of that, that I PRed on a 15^th and 16^th jump of my competition".

She attributes that ability to a high level of physical fitness: "My coach gets us very physically fit. We train really, really hard. I would say we train hardest of all the pole vaulters in the world. Coach tries to incorporate a pole into as much as possible so we will do full-blown running work-outs carrying a pole - not round the track but running straight - and it makes it so much more difficult doing the running with the pole. So for me doing 10 X 100 without a pole it is not a big deal but if you put a pole in your hands you cannot pump your arms and that makes it that much harder to run the 100m. By the end of those 10 X 100m we are barely able to run and are keeling over and falling on the track". So now you know.

Finally, please note that this is the first time I have written about Sandi without reference to monitor lizard or snakes.