Nina Kennedy sets pole vault record in a train station

Fresh from winning World Athletics Championship gold, Busselton-born Nina Kennedy has vaulted her way into the record books once again. This time in a Swiss train station.

The special event was staged on the eve of the world-famous Zurich Diamond League meet at Letzigrund Stadium, set up on a specially constructed track in the central railway station of the Swiss city, which services just shy of half a million people a day.

The unlikely setting evidently inspired the 26-year-old, who got the best of her co-gold medal winner Katie Moon. She did so by clearing a jump of 4.91 metres, the highest-ever vault by an Australian woman, adding one centimetre to the record she had cleared outdoors in the Budapest final a week earlier.

The victory was all the more impressive after she survived a brief wobble at 4.76m earlier in the competition.

“I didn’t actually have a lot of confidence going in today. I knew that Katie was out for blood,” Kennedy said after the event.

“Sharing that gold medal was nice and all but tonight we both wanted to win and be the outright winner so I felt the pressure.”

Not only was it the best vault by any woman in 2023, but it was also a meeting record, which only added to the growing list of remarkable achievements by Kennedy, who is currently the Commonwealth, World and Diamond League champion.

“I am really surprised, and I am so happy. This is all my dreams come true,,” Kennedy said after being cheered by a crowd of commuters watching from a makeshift stand around the landing mat, while trains were pulling in and out of platforms just metres away.

“Having a week off after the Worlds, I just wanted to go out there and have fun and I think because the pressure was off, I was able to just focus on doing what I love,

Kennedy was particularly delighted to emerge victorious after she nearly went out of the competition with the bar at 4.76, going over only at the final attempt before then pulling off four successive first-time clearances, including the record-breaking 4.91m, while runner-up Moon could respond with nothing better than 4.81.

Kennedy will head home before flying out to the United States, where she will again challenge the world’s best in the Diamond League final.