A few weeks ago Eliza McCartney cleared 4.92m in a meeting in Germany, beating the personal best that she’d set a month earlier in America during a Diamond League event by a good seven centimetres. Now she’s edged up another two cm’s with a 4.94m clearance at the Jockgrim Stabhochsprung-Meeting, again in Germany – the country she’s based out of during her seasons.

It’s been a crazy rise for Eliza, in keeping with the crazy heights of her sport. A year before she announced herself globally when she vaulted 4.80m in Rio for 2016 Olympic bronze she’d never even come within 15cm of that height in an official meet. Now in 2018 alone she’s added 12cm to her previous personal best. 4.94 metres, mate. That’s enormous.

Obviously every new PB she achieves is met with headlines about New Zealand records and Oceania records. As long as McCartney keeps doing what she’s doing, those three things are all going to be intertwined. But this particular height goes way further than that: it’s now the world leading height for 2018, beating Jenny Suhr’s 4.93m effort in Texas back in April. McCartney also has the third best clearance of the year too.

Suhr was competing against McCartney in Jockgrim, topping out at 4.87m (which EM also cleared), before retiring after missing once at 4.94m. McCartney stayed in at that height after two failings and cleared it at the third attempt. Then she had a go at 5.01m just for fun but didn’t get close. Olivia McTaggart was also competing by the way but missed three times at 4.15m.

Five metres is a bit of a mythical mark in the pole vault. Only two athletes have ever topped it an outdoor event: Yelena Isinbayeva and Sandi Morris. Morris is one of the very best in the business right now, silver medallist at the 2016 Olympics and a World Indoor Champion. She cleared 5.00m exactly in September 2016 and hasn’t touched that height again since but certainly has the potential. She cleared 4.95m to win the World Indoor Champs, for example. Morris’ American compatriot Jenny Suhr has also cleared five metres twice in indoor competition, the only other woman to break that barrier.

As for Isinbayeva, the Russian, if anyone deserves the Greatest of All Time title in women’s pole vault then it’s her. World Record of 5.06m, six different clearances over five metres and another two in indoor comps. Seven of the best eight outdoor heights ever. Triple world champion, two Olympic golds, 28 world records. But her career ended abruptly before the last Olympics when she was implicated, along with the rest of her country’s team, in the Russian doping scandal. This isn’t quite a shot put situation where the records are all tainted, Isinbayeva was banned by association not by failing a test, but yeah. Still, she’s the GOAT and her numbers are the benchmark.

Coming in ninth in the all-time outdoor ranks is Eliza McCartney’s 4.94m clearance. So that’s some esteemed company to find herself in. What’s maybe the most remarkable thing about this is that she’s still only 21 years old in a sport where you can comfortably compete well into your thirties. Isinbayeva retired at 34 and even that was reluctantly. Suhr is a few months older and at 36 she’s still hitting big heights. Morris is 26 and coming into her prime.

Then there’s the other star out there: Greek vaulter Katerina Stefanidi, who is 28. Stefanidi won the 2016 Olympic gold and then backed that up with gold at the 2017 World Champs. She’s also won consecutive Diamond League trophies. Funky thing with Stefanidi is that her personal best is back down at 4.91m and she hasn’t come close to that yet in 2018. Yet she’s been winning most of the major gold medals the last couple seasons.

Pretty good reason for that and it’s the number one thing that Eliza McCartney’s probably working on. Topping that mythical five metre mark is one thing but being able to consistently clear 4.85m or so is more important. This is a sport all about rhythm and routine. Consistency is the most important factor once you get to the top and Stefanidi might not be the most explosive or the rangiest athlete but she continually delivers when the pressure is on.

McCartney’s Olympic bronze was a complete shock, we knew she had that potential but delivering on it so soon was a bolt from the blue. Then, at a Commonwealth Games earlier this year where the winning margin was a very attainable (for Eliza) 4.75m (from Canadian Alysha Newman), she missed at three different heights: 4.70m, 4.75m and 4.80m, to settle for silver in a field that obviously didn’t include the perennial American or Greek contenders.

To be fair, McCartney’s had some injury worries over the last 12 months with that Achilles and the Commonwealth Games this year didn’t come at the best time for most athletes, hitting before the European season got into swing and all. More recently she managed just 4.72m at a Diamond League meet in Switzerland directly in between her two highest ever clearances, which both proves the case that individual events can be misleading but also that greater consistency is still on the agenda. And that’s to be expected from a young athlete in any sport.

Tell you what though, when Yelena Isinbayeva was McCartney’s current age she set her first World Record. 14 July 2003 in Gateshead, England… she cleared 4.82m. McCartney may have a much tougher task in terms of how much Isinbayeva upped the stakes but she’s 21 years old and has already cleared 12cm more than the GOAT had achieved at the same age. We’ve got a legend in the making here, Aotearoa.

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