Sophie Scott

Happy birthday to Australia’s pole vaulter Sophie Scott, a Queensland All-Schools champion who has added a quarter of a metre to her personal best in two years.

In April, at QSAC in Brisbane, Sophie cleared 3.55m. Two years earlier her best was 3.30m. In pole vault, twenty-five centimetres is not an increment — it is a change of grip, a change of pole, a change of run-up, and a lot of afternoons spent learning to trust an implement that is actively trying to throw you backwards. She has also won a Queensland All-Schools title, which in a state that produces vaulters at an alarming rate is a genuinely competitive thing to walk away with.

Pole vault is the most technically brutal event in athletics and the one that rewards patience most obviously. Every centimetre is bought with a mechanical change: a longer approach, a stiffer pole, a higher grip, a better plant. Vaulters do not creep up the bar smoothly, they jump in steps, and each step requires the courage to go faster at the box than you did last time.

Sophie is 19, holding 3.55m, in a country whose women’s pole vault is currently as strong as it has ever been — and that matters, because vaulters improve fastest with better vaulters standing next to them. There is a great deal of height still to be found here, and she has the years to go and find all of it.

Happy birthday, Sophie! Wishing you a year of high grips, big bends and bars that stay exactly where you left them. You beauty! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇦🇺