THE MOST OBVIOuS, jaw-dropping trait that new vault recordholder Desiree Freier possesses is an ability to vault high, very high.
“I knew I could get it,” she said after her 14-6. “In warmups I only took two jumps and coach said he knew I was going to jump Big. I could feel it.”
That’s just the latest height after a sustained siege of the bar that went back to an outstanding indoor season.
The next most jaw-dropping trait about the 17-year-old Texan is her frame—she’s only some 5-feet tall, a throwback to the gymnast dominated early days of the women’s vaulting game.That, though, obviously doesn’t begin to define or limit the Arkansas-bound senior.
“There are three things it’s good to have,” Freier says. “I’m strong and fast, I just lack the height. I have the rest.”
“She’s one of the most explosive kids I’ve ever been around,” coach George Lutkenhaus says. “She can jump, she’s fast, she’s strong. She’s a package of dynamite.
“People have said you have to be a certain size, have big levers. She’s smashed through all of that.She’s a wonderful young lady, a wonderful vaulter and she’s been doing it since she was a little girl.”
Freier has another thing some elite pole vaulters have. Her stepfather owns a pole vault facility and she has a runway and pit in her backyard. She’s been in the family business (her stepbrother was a vaulter, too) since she was 10.
“That’s nice,” Freier says of the setup in her backyard. “I’ve been doing it since I was little.”
She’s doing it better than any high school girl ever has.
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