Xu Hui Qin

Happy birthday to China’s pole vault star Xu Hui Qin, an Olympic finalist, a World Indoor finalist and one of the most reliably excellent vaulters Asia has produced.

Across a career that includes global finals on both surfaces, Xu placed eighth in the Olympic final in Tokyo and seventh in the World Indoor final in Belgrade. At the 2022 World Championships in Eugene she won her qualifying group outright before making the final. She took silver at the Asian Championships in Doha, finished fourth at the Asian Games, and won the Spitzen Leichtathletik meeting in Lucerne. Her best stands at 4.70m.

The pole vault is the most technically punishing event in athletics. It is the only one where the athlete has to master a piece of equipment as well as her own body, and where a good day and a no-height can be separated by a few centimetres of hand placement. Making world finals on both surfaces means she has assembled that skill and kept it sharp, on three continents.

生日快乐，惠琴！祝你天天开心 — and may there be a long bowl of 长寿面 in front of you today, the noodle unbroken from one end to the other. 加油! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇨🇳