Great Britain’s Molly Caudery was unable to defend her women’s pole vault title as she finished fourth at the World Indoor Athletics Championships.
Gold in Glasgow 12 months ago represented Caudery’s first global title, but the 25-year-old fell agonisingly short of the podium in Nanjing, China.
In a competition disrupted by technical issues, Caudery – with a season’s best of 4.85m – missed out on a medal on countback after failing to clear 4.75m.
The British record holder’s second-time vault over 4.70m meant she finished behind silver and bronze medallists Tina Sutej and Angelica Moser, who both made that height at the first attempt, as France’s Marie-Julie Bonnin cleared 4.75m for gold.
“I’m really disappointed. I wanted to come out here after last year and do something and I know that I’m in shape to do something,” Caudery told BBC Sport.
“But that competition was really hard. There were a lot of issues and we were waiting for nearly an hour at one point.”
‘I feel a bit flat’
The women’s competition was delayed by around 40 minutes during Saturday’s morning session because of an issue with the technology that lifts the bar.
Once it resumed, Caudery managed to clear 4.70m – but she could not avoid catching the bar on her way back down in her last two attempts at 4.75m, despite appearing to have ample height.
Caudrey said she and other competitors struggled with the flow of the competition after the delay – but the Briton did not want to make excuses for her performance.
“I did clear the bar, which I was really happy with and I’ve never celebrated 4.70m so much, but I think it just threw me off my rhythm,” she said.
“I’m not putting too much blame on myself. I do wonder, without those technical difficulties, if I could have gone on to jump.
“But there’s no point thinking about that. I feel a bit flat, to be honest.”
Caudery failed to qualify for the Olympic final last summer, despite entering Paris 2024 as one of the favourites after a breakthrough season in which she broke Holly Bradshaw’s national record with a vault over 4.92m.
Eager to use that disappointment to fuel a pursuit of more major titles, Caudery made a promising start to 2025 by clearing 4.85m in February.
She took the decision to miss the European indoors two weeks ago to focus fully on her title defence here while she managed a minor calf injury, but will now fix her attention on a gold medal bid at the World Championships in Tokyo in September.
“It hasn’t been a perfect indoors. It’s disappointing to say the least but everything is a learning curve,” said Caudery.
“I felt really good. I don’t know what I could have gone on to jump without those technical difficulties, but there is no point thinking about that.”
