Aikaterina Stefanidi
I was happy to see Aikaterina Stefanidi competing indoors this year after missing the 2025 season. As well as being one of the greatest pole vaulters of all time, world champion in London 2017 and Olympic champion in, say, 2016, I’ve always found him one of the most interesting athletes to talk to. Ask him a question and you’ll get a straight answer. To celebrate the fact that he’s competing at Millrose, I’ve pulled some Q&As from my archives.
How did it all begin?
Growing up in Greece, I started pole vaulting at age 10, earlier than most girls. It was in 2000 that the first Olympic women’s pole vault took place. Over the next five years, I broke the world age record. i think i still keep some of them. When I was 16, I broke the under-18 world record of 4.37.
The dynamics of being coached by your husband, Mitch.
When we started, we said that when we get in the car to go to practice, we are coaches and athletes. When we get into the car, we are husband and wife again.” I think we’ve done a pretty good job of tracking that. Since 2015, our lives have changed dramatically, becoming part of the pole vaulting community and traveling. That means it’s almost impossible not to talk about pole vaulting at home. But I think we do it in a way that varies from coach to athlete. We’ll argue about something once in a while, but nothing really big.
How is it? A balance of physical, technical and behavioral abilities to be successful.
The consistency of my running, and I think it’s both physical and technical, is what makes me so consistent in jumping in championships. To have this confidence in my campaign stage, and it’s not just blind confidence, because it really is. Every time I run and put the bar down I’m usually an inch and that gives me confidence for the jump. Not so much my running speed but the way I ran. Growing up I was always pretty fast. now i know i’m not the fastest. So speed is there, but for me at this point I don’t think running speed is as important as running technique. I think speed and explosiveness are going to be my top two.
Life balance?
When I was in college, it helped me a lot that I had the other side of my life: studies. Sometimes I got tired of the academic side and couldn’t wait to get out to practice. But after college (and I was full time) I didn’t have anything else, not quite right, because we were remodeling our house. But I think it was important for me then to focus more on the pole vault and dedicate myself to it. I think it also depends on how the year will go. Sometimes you may need a distraction and other times you may not. I feel like I’m pretty good at finding a balance. When I need to focus more on pole vaulting, I can do that, but when I need a distraction, I can do that.
Is it true that you’re not getting much exercise with your full, 16-step approach?
Yes, inside we never go back to my full run. Outside, we’ve had a few training sessions throughout the run, but only a few weeks before a big meet or championship. This is partly because I jump around a lot. I run less than most pole vaulters, but I would do more jumps. I’d rather do that, and have the feel of the club and all the different positions where you can hit it a little bit differently, but still finish it and get it; it’s much more important to me. I’ve been running and running since I was little, and I feel like I don’t need to work on long runs to get that consistency. If I can be consistent with 6 or 12 steps, going back to 16 just seems like a jump start.
How to approach the championship?
I think there may be a genetic or biological component to it. Nervousness and anxiety cause us to release certain hormones, but people react to it differently. It’s not that one person is more nervous than another, it’s that something happens chemically in our brains differently. I think up to a point you can control it and work on it. When I was 15 I won the World Junior Championship and I didn’t go there as favourites, so I’ve been involved since I was young and I think there’s something that’s always been there. But I think we’ve also worked on it to help me physically and mentally, and maybe “mentally” is the most important thing for pole vaulting. I’ve been to the championships every year and every year has been a little different and almost every year I’ve been able to get a season’s best in the championship.
How long can you keep filling?
It seems like every year more restoration work needs to be done. If you think about starting with 100 coins in practice, it seems like every year one more goes from practice to recovery. You don’t have much energy. You can’t expect to do the same amount of practice and be as healthy as you get older. But of course, you can have one bad year health-wise and then come back stronger or even feel that the recovery you did last year will work for you this year. Perhaps I’ll keep doing it until I’m 38, like Jen Soor, or even into my forties. Even when I retire, I won’t retire, I’ll just stop getting paid for it.
For someone who jumps 4:50, how do they get to 4:80?
What I feel is lacking among some young women is respect for sports, particularly respect for the professional side of sports. I remember in London 2017 when the bronze medal height was 4.65, which wasn’t a great height, but it was the World Championships, and then I heard people saying “if I was there and I could win a medal at the World Championships”. That’s not how professional sports work and I think there’s a huge lack of respect for what we do. We are there jumping 20 or 30 times a year. And I think that’s happening more and more because more girls are jumping higher, younger. They exceed age group records. they are breaking high school records. Because of that, I think, a greater lack of respect is created. There’s a huge difference at 4.30, 4.40 that you jump when you’re one of the best as a junior to 4.70. But even for a girl jumping 4.50 to get to 4.60. It’s a different level and to do it in conditions where we have to do it most of the year. I think people don’t realize that.
Dealing with major league nerves
I think one of the reasons I do well in championships is that I don’t think about anything. It’s not that I don’t get nervous, I get nervous, but I let my brain shut down and let my body do what it’s learned in practice. More than anything, I try to turn my brain off rather than focusing on anything.
I think in general I work well under pressure in a lot of different things. This is not always the case, as some people work well under pressure in certain situations and others not. I’ve always been a good test taker, so I think there’s a biological component. But also because I’ve been pole vaulting since I was 10 years old, I’ve done so many jumps and so many different jumps that I can get a good jump out of a bad run or a bad jump. Take my 4.82 in London 2017, I almost dropped it but then I made it. And if I didn’t make a 4.91, I’d still have that 4.82 with the jump. That’s the Mondo “just move your arms and cross the bar” approach.
You learn a lot more from your bad days. That’s when you become a better pole vaulter.
If you take a third attempt on the bar that won’t win you a medal, but will get you three attempts at medal height, do you take it or pass?
I was going to say pass, but then it depends on the contest point. I think of a situation where I am the fourth. Who wants to jump number four? I would prefer the pressure of jumping for a medal.
