(Paris) “I did it! I’m on the podium! Holy shit!” exclaimed Alysha Newman as she appeared before the Canadian media in the bowels of the Stade de France. The pole vaulter was beaming, and rightly so: she had just won bronze, Canada’s first Olympic medal in the discipline in 112 years.
Not only has no Canadian pole vaulter achieved such a feat since William Halpenny at the 1912 Stockholm Games, but Newman is the first woman to represent the maple leaf to do so. And she did it with panache, charming many spectators with her energy and friendly face.
When it came time to attack the 4.85m bar, only five competitors were still in contention for a medal. Newman missed her first attempt, barely touching the bar. As her opponents took turns jumping, the Ontarian grabbed her pencil and notebook. “Courage, courage, courage,” she wrote, over and over again.
“For some reason, that word has been very powerful to my heart and veins this year,” she explained. “It just worked. Everything worked. I jumped right in, and here I am talking to you.”
It certainly paid off. On her second attempt, the 30-year-old brilliantly flew over the bar, setting a new Canadian and personal record. Once she landed her jump, Newman climbed down from the landing zone, pretending to have an injured leg… before starting to twerka broad smile on his lips, towards the crowd.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Alysha Newman cleared a height of 4.85 m, setting a new Canadian record.
“I was so excited about my celebration! Did you like it? My fake injury!” the pole vaulter said later in the mixed zone. “I’m hurt all the time, so I pretended I was. I was like, ‘Ugh, I’m hurt again!’ Then I twerked ! »
My coach said: you got me, I thought you had a hamstring injury! I said: I got you! The celebration made perfect sense with everything I’ve been through.
Alysha Newman
It’s been a tough few years for Newman, who has dealt with recurring symptoms related to a concussion suffered in 2020. However, she has found success again this season, notably reaching a personal best of 4.83m, which she beat in Paris. Hence the elation she displayed when she cleared 4.85m.
“When I qualified for the Olympics, I got 20 messages from managers, friends, family members, saying: wrap yourself in bubble wrap, don’t hurt yourself in the next two weeks, or we’re going to kill you!”
A beneficial change of poles
Alysha Newman attempted the 16-foot height three more times afterward, each time signaling the crowd to cheer louder. She didn’t make it, but we can bet she won some new fans among the tens of thousands of spectators in attendance.
With her bronze medal secured, Newman had to wait for the last two competitors to make their final attempts. Australia’s Nina Kennedy ultimately took the gold with a 4.90m clearance, while American Katie Moon won silver with a 4.85m clearance. Moon edged out Newman due to a lower total of failures.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Alysha Newman came very close to breaking the 4.90m mark.
“I’ve never been third, but you still have to sit down and wait for the other girls to finish,” the Canadian said with a hearty laugh. “I was standing there, it was weird. I was like, what do I do? Do I celebrate? Do I hug everybody? Do I cry? It was a pretty surreal moment.”
I would have liked to have achieved 4.90m, but I am over the moon at the moment with my national record. I couldn’t have done anything better tonight.
Alysha Newman
Earlier in the event, on her second jump of the evening, Newman had a bit of a weak moment. After clearing the first bar of 4.40m, she missed the 4.60m. In fact, she missed her swing.
“I think the nerves got to me,” she explained. “I ran and I had a blank. I was like, ‘Wait, what just happened?’ I went to my coach and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m nervous.’ He was like, ‘You’re supposed to be, it’s the Olympics.’”
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Alysha Newman celebrated with the Canadian flag after winning the bronze medal.
She thought back to her younger days in gymnastics. Her father always told her the same thing: “When you’re nervous, when you have butterflies in your stomach, it’s because you’re ready.” “I thought back to that and it fell into place. From the moment I managed my 4.70m, then my 4.80m, everything was going well.”
The new medalist also revealed that she changed poles last October. She spent the entire indoor season testing her new work tools. “The jump where I did my national record, it was a brand new pole freshly wrapped. I had just taken it out of my bag,” she noted. She had in her hands a pole that “wasn’t heavy, that hadn’t experienced any trauma, seen any injuries,” she said. “I felt it light. I felt like a feather.”
“A bigger voice”
Alysha Newman has “taken [sa] retired about 20 times in [sa] head” in recent years. “Honestly, one of the things I always told myself is that I never felt finished. I never felt like I was done giving to the sport,” she told Canadian reporters.
Newman has nearly 600,000 followers on Instagram. She also has an account on the OnlyFans platform. In June 2022, during her visit to Montreal for the Athletics Classic, she explained that she wanted to “build a brand” in order to increase her income “to eventually build infrastructure and do other things for other people.”
On Wednesday, three years after that statement, she still had the same goal. Her medal, she believes, will give her “a bigger voice.” She plans to build an athletics track in Canada.
“My dreams are bigger than medals,” said the friendly athlete. “Maybe it sounds horrible, it’s a great moment that I’m going to live, but I’m excited to see what I can do with it.”