COMPETING SUCCESSFULLY in the pole vault at the very highest of levels is all about mastering pressure. No one knows that better than Katie Moon, and no woman has been as successful at it in recent years.
Moon, at 34, has now won 3 WC golds in a row, an unprecedented feat. Add that to the Cleveland native’s Olympic gold in ’21 and her silver last year, and it is clear that she is putting together a career that will be regarded as legendary, if it isn’t already.
With her return to Tokyo, where she won her Olympic gold — then in a nearly empty stadium, this time in front of a packed venue — Moon painted the perfect picture of triumph under fire, pushed to the absolute limits by AR holder Sandi Morris to claim a clutch victory by soaring 16-¾ (4.90).
Flush with joy, and with the weight of the season finally off her shoulders, she joined the T&FN Tours banquet to share her experience with the superfans present in an interview with NBC’s Paul Swangard. She shared additional comments made to our editor, Sieg Lindstrom.
The secret, said Moon, has been a steady progression of solid training and coaching, both in the physical act of leaping high in the sky and the mental side of trying to beat others at the game. “Year by year we’ve just built on not just me as an athlete physically getting stronger, getting faster, getting better technically, but really just becoming more mentally sound on the runway, telling myself what I want to do in high pressure situations,” she explained.
“And that just comes with repetition and years of having [Brad Walker’s] good coaching and he really just taught me how to think on the runway. And so in those high-pressure moments, all I’m thinking about is how I’m going to clear the bar and not, ‘Don’t mess this up, this is huge.’
“It really is just keeping it very tunnel vision because it’s very easy to mess it up. But, yeah, it really is a testament to him and just the way he’s coached me. And year by year, I feel that I’ve been able to build on my confidence with him.”
The progression of the bar in Japan was, some felt, a bit on the aggressive side, opening at 14-7¼ (4.45) before jumping to 15-3 (4.65), then 15-7 (4.75), with 5cm increments after that. Not a problem for Moon.
“I personally love an aggressive progression because it just takes the guesswork out of, ‘OK, do I pass this bar? Do I come in a little bit higher?’ You know, the way that it was was kind of perfect. And so I love that progression. Some people thought maybe it was a little too aggressive, but I think that people are going to step up and challenge and you’re going to be able to clear things that maybe you didn’t think you could on an opening height or on a second bar. It was a good progression to get me set up for those higher bars.”
The breeze helped her as well: “It was a little bit of a headwind a lot of the night, which normally we don’t like the wind working against us, but in this instance, I do think it helped me get just a little bit more out of my poles. I kept my standards all the way back, so where our hips peak over the bar, we could choose how close or far back it is. I kept them all the way back the entire competition. I was on one pole for the first jump and then stayed on the next pole the rest of the competition.
“For those last two [jumps], I was coming down on it. I think I just wanted to make that bar and so I was just shorting the bottom a little bit, trying to get back really clean, really tight, and as a result, I didn’t cover the distance like I should have. And so that third final attempt [the winning vault] I really just tried to marry the two, like just cover the ground and get back tight.”
At this point, Moon could teach a master class in handling the pressure. She explained, “The consistency really comes from the way my coach taught me how to think on the runway. I think there’s a misconception that I had that you’ve just got to shut your brain off and just go. And the reality is the best athletes know how to think in high-pressure situations. They don’t underthink and just go totally blank, but they don’t overthink it and make it more complicated than it is. But that took time and years and repetitions of every jump, every practice, everything, just focusing exactly on my cues and telling my body what I wanted it to do so that when we got in those high-pressure situations — I was still very nervous.”
Battling against longtime rival Morris is what made the competition complete: “Sandi is incredibly talented. She cleared 4.85 [15-11] on a first and put me in a position where I had to clear a 4.90 [16-¾]. I mean, she did her job. She showed up, she competed. She is a competitor and I knew coming into this meet, I said to my husband, ‘I have to go in with the mindset that I have to clear 4.90 to win. I just know that it’s going to take that.’
“I think you just have to go in thinking it’s going be higher than what it is. And it usually is that anyways. But if there’s anybody that I want to duke it out with, it’s an American athlete. And Sandi, her resonance speaks for itself. So I’m just so happy to see her back on the podium.”
For the past year Moon has been training in Tulsa, being coached remotely by Walker, who is now in Canada. The switch to the new arrangement, she says, has gone smoothly. “Anytime you make a big transition, you never really know how it’s going to go, but I felt very confident in my decision. I know that technically I’ve learned most of what I can from Brad. I will continue working with him until I retire, but I had gotten to a place where I knew that I could do the majority of it away from him and still feel comfortable and confident. And I knew that I couldn’t sacrifice being away from my husband and more importantly, my dog.”
She describes her canine companion, Finn, as “a mix of like pit bull, bulldog, like a Rottweiler. He’s a little bit of everything.” But it’s her husband, Hugo, an assistant rowing coach at Tulsa, who is perhaps a more crucial cog to the coaching.
“Brad sends all of my work, my training plans, and then during vault sessions, I will either have my husband send him the [videos] as I’m doing them, or at the end of the session, I’ll just send him everything and we’ll just debrief after that.”
Her husband, she says, “He can see what’s happening. He can’t always tell me the right change to make, but I can at least talk to him. He’s seen enough jumping and again with coaching he has that critical eye. He can see body movement and flow of energy and so it’s great because he understands it enough to be a good voice. He’s helped me win a couple big meets in the past when my coach couldn’t be there.”
The arrangement clearly is paying dividends. “My headspace and my mental game has been the most positive it’s ever been.”
