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Katie Nageotte won an unexpected gold medal for the United States in the pole vault at the Olympics ahead of world champion Anzhelika Sidorova of the Russian Olympic Committee team.
Nageotte failed in his first two attempts at the competition at 4.50 meters, but improved from there to clinch his first major medal, clearing 4.90 (16.08 feet) on his third attempt in the medal round.
“I know my family got up really early to watch, and I would have felt terrible if I had made them get up at 6 am to look at me without height,” she said. “So that was definitely going through my head.”
Sidorova won the silver medal with 4.85. She missed her last chance at 4.90 and moved the bar to 4.95, but failed to erase it.
Sidorova’s silver was the first medal in athletics at the Tokyo Games for the ROC team. Briton Holly Bradshaw won the bronze medal.
The Nageotte Gold was part of a five-minute flurry of action near the backstroke of the Olympic track that served as the perfect snapshot of what’s going right and wrong for the U.S. track and field team at Tokyo.
After Nageotte rushed into the stands to celebrate, US 400-meter champion Michael Norman couldn’t sustain his quick start, finishing fourth.
The American male sprinters, once the dominant power in the track sports world, left the stadium without winning a single gold medal in the first seven days of the nine-day competition.
Nageotte joins Jenn Suhr and Stacy Dragila as US Olympic pole vault champions.
After clinching gold, Nageotte stuck the pole, set the bar at 5.01 and prepared to attempt an American record. She took off on the runway but came to a stop. She couldn’t concentrate, given what she had just been through.
“The thrill of winning,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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