by Stuart Weir
Katie Nageotte, 2021 Doha Diamond League, photo by Diamond League AG
During the insanity that is an Olympic final, Katie Nageotte kept her cool, and made a clearance on her very last attempt at 4.50m, Katie took control of her dreams and battled Anzehlika Siderova, with Nageotte taking the gold and Siderova taking the silver. Brad Walker, her coach, and the Osaka 2007 World champion told her to expect anything and everything in an Olympic final. That was fine advice, as she stayed focus and did not panic, and made her dreams a reality.
In this second piece on Katie Nageotte, Stuart Weir writes about the coach/athlete relationship, key to her success.
The process and the coach
The journey to victory in Tokyo, didn’t exactly start in 2016, but it took a major turning that year. When Katie jumped a PR of 4.60 at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, came fifth and failed to make the US team for Rio, she undertook an evaluation of where she was and decided to approach Brad Walker, the 2007 men’s World Champion in pole-vault, to see if he would coach her: “I guess I was in a position to say ‘OK, I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. I can’t be in charge. I need to get out of my comfort zone’. I needed to let someone challenge me in a way that hadn’t happened before and Brad was the perfect person with the right personality to do that. I don’t like getting out of my comfort zone. I push back. I cry. I hate it. So I needed somebody who was a very motivating presence, someone that I wanted to impress, to do well for him. And I still do to some extent. I pretty much owe everything to Brad.
“When I didn’t make the team for Rio, I reached out to Brad in late 2016. My plan had been to stay in my present situation and then move in pre-season but I went to Atlanta for a trial in November 2016 and it went so well that I ended up moving out there between indoor and outdoor, so I officially moved out there late winter/early spring 2017″.
Katie Nageotte, 2021 Nike Pre Classic, photo by Diamond League AG
“When I started working with Brad, he really tackled the mental side. I was a very mentally unstable vaulter, if you want to call it that. I was afraid of the vault and I suppose to this day I still am. He fixed me mentally and gave me the things to focus on, and the ways to focus on them: how to think on the runway. And a lot may sound obvious to some people, but I was very blank-minded. I would just run down the runway, and throw my hands up and hope for the best. By tackling the mental side and changing it to attack and execute mode, we could really get after the technical things that were holding me back”.
When we talked, Katie made a surprising admission, which underlined the importance of the mental side of her vaulting: “Pole vault has always scared me and it makes me nervous”. She continued: “I had a really bad mental block during my college years and I think I’ve carried some of that with me through my entire career. Because of that, when I go into a vault session there is a level of anxiety. I have to be very focused on my cues and on what I’m trying to execute and that’s how I’ve kept those emotions at bay and have been able to train. It is just one of those things that will always affect me. I will always be a little on edge going into vault sessions. Once I pick up the pole, as long as I’m focused the right way, it is fine. Once I start moving, I’m not afraid. There are times when the emotion will get the better of me and that’s when you see run throughs. I went through a lot of that throughout my career”.
Katie is based in Atlanta, training with Kristen Brown, Robin Bone from Canada and Natalie Uy (Philippines) with Sandi Morris having just joined the group. They vault twice a week with a training week looking something like this:
Monday: vault session and lifting
Tuesday: active recovery – bike, stretch. Non-impact but getting good blood flow
Wednesday: sprint session and lifting
Thursday: day off and therapy
Friday: vault session and lifting
Saturday: longer sprints – 120s
Sunday: day off
Under Brad’s guidance, Katie has addressed some of the technical issues she mentioned: “My biggest problem was the take-off, transferring the speed I had generated on the runway into the take-off to get onto as big a pole as I could. I limited myself in the take-off, in the way that I would back off. By fixing the mental first, we could get after to the technical things, fine tune and make me a better vaulter”.
In 2018 she was fifth in the World Indoors and in 2019 second in the US trials, second in the PanAm Games and seventh in the World Championships in Doha, all stepping stones on the way to the Tokyo victory.
Finally in this article, some technical data without which no pole-vault article is complete!
Katie uses a 4.45m pole. The flex is in the 17. range with the stiffest one about a 16.4 – a 175 or 180*. Like all pole vaulters she takes 8-10 poles – of varying amounts of flex – to a meet. In the Olympic final, for example, because she had a tight quad, she was on three poles softer (more flex) than at the US trials. Her run-up is about 113 feet.
A central aspect of her life is her Christian faith as she explained: “Faith in God plays a big role in my life. I have a prayer journal that I write in. I try to keep everything in perspective, reminding myself that everything that I do is a gift and a God-given ability. I don’t know why God chose me to be as good at pole vaulting as I am, but He did and I am very fortunate. Obviously, things happen in my life that are sad and hard – like my dad passing away. But my family is wonderful and I feel so blessed to have the people around me that I do and the support system that I have. I owe everything to God”.
* Every pole has a flex number, and a poundage – ie as a general rule you shouldn’t jump on a pole of a poundage less than your body weight or you might break it. So 16.4 is the flex number. 175 or 180 lbs is the poundage rating of the pole.
