by Stuart Weir
Katie Moon talks Stuart through her Zurich win
Katie Moon won the Diamond League pole-vault in Brussels on Friday with 4.85m. She followed that with a win in the Diamond League final in Zurich with 4.82m. She gave me her overall reaction to her week’s work:
“It was awesome, so much fun. I’m happy with how it went. This is my first win in Zurich. I have always wanted to win Zurich. It feels so good. I will take some lessons with me from Zurich, e.g. staying patient, not rushing things. Today I felt the jetlag more than in Brussels, especially in the middle of the competition, so my victory would not have happened without the crowd. I needed their extra energy. I love it when the crowd is right there and you feel the energy. I was feeling a little bit just foggy which is normal for me after about a week of jetlag. So I’m just I’m glad that I was able to stay relaxed and execute that’s really what I was hoping for, coming into Brussels and then Zurich. I really wanted to treat these two meets to be good preparation for Tokyo and I think I did that. To win here and to execute this way gives me a real boost of confidence. In Tokyo I will do everything to retain my title”.
The women’s pole vault was scheduled for day two in the stadium but there was a forecast of heavy rain. Katie takes up the story: “At first I was hoping that we could jump in the stadium. But then we asked the organizers to wtitch it to today because jumping in the rain can be very dangerous”.
I asked Katie to talk me through her approach to the competition:
I skipped the two opening bars 4.30m and 4.45m
I opened at 4.55m because knew that I was on a stick that could throw me that high so I opened there.
I had a failure at 4.65m but cleared at the second attempt. On a temporary runaway it can take one or two runs to get your run-up dialled in and that is what I was experiencing and what caused the failure.
At 4.75 mI was really feeling the jetlag and I missed my first attempt but I knew it was more an issue with my step than me actually executing. I also knew I didn’t have a lot of jumps in me today so I wanted to make them count. That’s why I chose to pass at 4.75m and go straight to through to whatever was next. I think that just made the most sense on the day. Sandi Morris and Emily Grove cleared 4.75m which left me in third.
Then I made 4.82m on the first attempt. Emily had three failures and Sandi one failure and a pass.
The next height was 4.89m, a strange height but chosen to give Angelica Mosel a shot at the Swiss record, but she was already out. I failed at 4.89m but when Sandi failed twice I was the winner
I took my last two attempts at 4.90m because it is important to go over the next 10cm barrier. But I failed twice at 4.90m
Finally I asked her if there were any technical challenges in a street event. “I wouldn’t say technical, it’s just more your run up might be a little different. With this one in particular I was much farther back. Sometimes that gives you a little bit of extra bounce – maybe bounce is the wrong word – but just it moves you better and so I was farther back than I would be in a stadium but as long as you treat the warm-ups seriously and you figure that out you can go from there”.
