In this interview with Katie Nageotte, the 2022 World Athletics pole vault gold medalist, the EBU RADIO team chatted with the Olympic and World Champ gold medalist in the mixed zone just after her victory.
Katie Nageotte won the Olympic gold medal last summer in Tokyo. That was Katie’s dream for years, and when she achieved it, she had some challenges getting motivated once again. At the World Indoors, Katie took silver to Sandi Morris, her training partner and teammate, who defended her title from Birmingham 2018.
In a challenging pole vault competition, Katie Nageotte and Sandi Morris both cleared 4.85 meters, but neither could achieve the next height of 4.90m. As Katie made one less attempt than Sandi, the gold medal went to Katie Nageotte.
Katie had this to say about the competition just before her interview:
“To be honest, I knew that each meeting that I had since starting to feel more myself, what started I would say in Rome, I just tried to build on that and tried to kind of block out earlier in the year, the negativity and anxiety as much as possible.
Tried to look at the goal as much as possible. Coming in here for the trials, I felt really good and tried to build on it; on the wins, I felt good again, and each jump is a new jump. I just tried not to think too much about the things that happened earlier.
I tried to allow this volume of the training that I have, and I am proud of the jumps that I had.
Sandi is disappointed with her silver, and that is why she is the best. Because I would have been disappointed with the silver too. Top athletes have to accomplish the tasks.”
Katie Nageotte did this interview with EBU Radio in the mixed zone just after the competition on Day 3.