by Stuart WeirMorgan Lake joins the 2 meter club
The women’s high jump at the 2025 Diamond League finals was an epic competition with Nicola Olysagers winning with 2.04m and four athletes clearing the magical 2 meter barrier. But what I want to write about is Morgan Lake getting two meters for the first time. I first recall seeing Morgan at the European Champions in Zurich in 2014 and the European Indoors in Prague in 2015 when she was 17 and then at the World Championships in 2015. At that stage she was not sure if she was a high jumper or a heptathlete. I first interviewed her in 2017. At that stage she was still torn, telling me: “I do want to have one last shot at the heptathlon. It is something I have always loved doing but this year and last year I have had a lot of focus on high jump because of circumstances like injury and training structures and because it is my go to back-up event. I’ve been lucky that it has been going well and I am really enjoying it. I will do another winter of heptathlon work and see where that takes me”.
Morgan jumped 1.90m in 2013 aged 16, then 1.94m (2014), 1.96m (2017), 1.97m (2018) 1.99m (2023). She was fourth in the Budapest Worlds with 1.97.m I remember at the time being impressed with her resolve. I am sure she could have cleared something higher but was determined to stay in the fight for a medal and risk all on a 2m jump. In terms of the process, Morgan also made an interesting point that many of the crowd are probably not track and field experts and they will look at her and think, she is amazing to be able to jump 2 metres, not realizing that it is the culmination of 12 years work from jumping 1.90 in 2013 to getting to 2m in 2025.
In Zurich, in the street event, where she finally nailed the magical 2 meters, she could hardly contain her excitement: “Amazing! Jumping 2 meters is really something I wanted to do in my whole career. I’m still kind of in shock today. In Lausanne last week I felt so good, but with the rain good jumps were not really possible. I knew a big one was there. So I wanted to jump again soon. After clearing 1.97 tonight, I was like ‘I know I have something big in me this evening’. When I cleared 2 meters I had to look at the board to double-check that I really did this. I jumped a national record today, at a Diamond League final and came in top 3. I am full of confidence now going into the world championships knowing I cleared 2 meters. Yeah, I just wanted obviously to go out there and be competitive going into World Championships. I feel like I’ve had a good season. I’ve been really consistent over 1.95/96, but I just knew there was something more and I was like, well, this is my last chance for the World Championships to kind of just show myself, what shape I’m in. I was like whatever I jump today is what we’ll have to work with that”.
I asked her to talk me through the competition in Zurich:
“1.80m and 1.84m, I sat out.
I opened at 1.88m. My goal this year is to start a bit higher. In most of the championships like Worlds, Olympics in the final, the start height is around that anyway. So I was like, I need to be comfortable enough to start there every time. So, I was happy with that entry point.
Then first time clearance at 1.91m and 1.94m. It was a very fast moving competition and everyone was obviously in form. (Everyone cleared 1.91m at the first attempt and all but Eleanor Patterson 1.94m with one attempt).
Then I got 1.97m at the third attempt. I wasn’t too nervous because I knew how good the 1.94 had been. I didn’t want to put that pressure on myself. I told myself ‘Let’s just jump’ and yeah, the 1.97m was good.
And then first attempt over 2 metres, I think I came out of that competition mindset then because I was like what has just happened, the competition went so quickly and to jump 2 metres for the first time, was exciting. My new coach, Yannick Tregaro, has given me a lot of confidence knowing his coaching record, that he’s coached few girls over 2 meters”.
She talked about her new coaching set-up in Sweden: “Before I tried to control everything – I had to do this specific things. I had to control what I eat and everything was very regimented. And I think after not making the final in Paris last year, I was thinking: ‘This is not a fun way to live. I don’t want to do this anymore. So this year I’m going to change myself, to change things – change everything and just enjoy myself. Enjoy things and assess it and see what happens”. Now, in an environment that she enjoys, her task is to “keep the body healthy and don’t try to change too much. I think I really found that today with from the two metre to the 2:02. I was like, oh, I need to do something different and I didn’t. I think I could have cleared 2:02 with my two metre jump so it’s like just keep trusting my coach, keep trusting what we’re doing and training and just do the same again and be ready for Tokyo.
Finally I asked her about city events: “I think that’s what the amazing thing about a city event is that the fans feel so close. Also you get to just focus on what you’re doing. In a stadium when you’ve got maybe a long distance race on, you have to keep an eye on the track that so you’re not hitting anyone and an eye on the clock and there’s obviously a lot of things going on, whereas in the street mean you quite have all the crowds close. And you have that time to focus on your jumping. So, it’s nice to have done it here in that atmosphere with”.
