Olympic silver medallist and meeting record holder Sandi Morris is expecting it to be “a blast” at the street pole vault competition, which will take place in Täby Square on Saturday. For the first time ever, the event will be part of the BAUHAUS-galan meeting in Stockholm.
The USA record holder, a three-time world silver medallist (2017, 2019, 2022), has a personal best of 5.00m and cleared 4.86m at the 2018 event. She is relishing the opportunity to compete in the street competition, which gets underway at 2:15pm with a men’s contest to qualify for Sunday’s Diamond League meeting, alongside the women’s outright Diamond League competition.
“I love performing for a crowd, and so the closer the crowd can be to me, the more energy I feel I can get from them,” said Morris at Friday’s press conference ahead of the street-based competition.
“You can see individual people’s faces and see them light up when they make eye contact with you, high five, and have fun with the crowd. That’s my favorite part about city events—just the interactions and the energy you get from the people who are close to you and to the runway as well.
“When you’re on a raised runway, you don’t have to push so hard to get that pop out of your run. It allows you to ease into the run more, and you can get more pop out of the jump as well.”
Morris has a track record of scaling the heights in street events—she cleared 4.95m at the Greenville Liberty Bridge Jump-Off in the USA six years ago.
“Well, that was a great day because it was a home meeting for me. We held it in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, and I’ve never felt that much energy around me from a crowd,” she recalls.
“I mean, it was incredible. A fun story is the fact that my grandma was there to watch me that day, and it was really special to share that with her. She had never seen me pole vault before, and then she got to see me jump 4.95m in person.
“I didn’t have the heart to tell her I don’t jump that high every single day, but I’ll just let her think that. It was a lot of fun, and street meetings are always a blast.”
Morris’s rivals on Saturday include European indoor and outdoor champion Angelica Moser of Switzerland. Meanwhile, the men’s competition features USA duo KC Lightfoot and Chris Nilsen, both of whom are six-metre pole vaulters. The winner will qualify for Sunday’s Diamond League competition alongside world record holder Armand Duplantis of Sweden.