Sydney Horn Holly Bradshaw: Higher at High Point The Time of Her Life :
By Ralph Hardy You can count on two fingers the number of female pole vaulters in the world who vaulted higher than Holly Bradshaw in Tokyo this past summer. The Olympic bronze medalist had a spectacular 2021, raising the UK record to 4.90 meters, placing third in the European Indoor Championships, and finishing in the top 4 in seven Diamond League pole vault events, all while working on a master’s degree in sports psychology. I interviewed Holly by phone on November 3rd, the day after her 30th birthday. Her husband Paul had surprised her with a night away from the athletic center in Loughborough where she trains, and they were stuck in traffic, which might be the only time Holly isn’t on the move.
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TAKEOFF: Happy birthday, Holly. I saw a video of you on Twitter yesterday from when you set the British record of 4.90m. That was a great vault and there is a wonderful celebration at the end. Holly: Thank you. I think that’s pretty much the only angle I’ve got of it but it shows the raw emotion, which is really special. TAKEOFF: What was Pole your childhood Photo credit: Vault Carolina like growing up in northern England?
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Holly: I was born in Preston in the northwest, the county is Lancashire. When I retire, I’ll 100% move back there. It’s a small-time kind of town with lots of countryside, but it is only 40 minutes away from Liverpool and Manchester. I still have a group of 15 mates whom I’ve known since we were six years old. These are the kind of special relationships you build there. TAKEOFF: That sounds fantastic! I read you were 17 when you first started pole vaulting. Holly: It’s a weird story, really. When I was about to turn 17, I started training for pole vault. But for the year and half leading into that, I just went to competitions, picked up any pole, and got over a bar and that was it. Because I was kind of crazy and came from a gymnastics background, I was the one they threw in but there was no coach or training so I just competed on the weekends. My club realized how much I loved it, and got a coach down to do six weeks of taster classes. The coach saw something in me and invited me to come and train with them in Manchester, and it spiraled out of control from there. I was training with him once a week, then twice a week, and then after a couple of months, five days a week. I improved quickly.
TAKEOFF: Do you come from an athletic family? Holly: My mom is very academic, a teacher, and she studied for a master’s, whereas my dad has a sporting background. He played American football and still plays now once a week. Me and my sister are definitely anomalies in the family. We’re very, very sporty and no one else really is. TAKEOFF: And you’re too tall for a gymnast, obviously at five nine. Holly: I did gymnastics as a kid, but then literally as soon as I stopped, I had a massive spurt and grew half a meter or something. TAKEOFF: Did you compete in athletics for your high school the way our athletes do? Or is it a different system altogether? Holly: The one thing I noticed when I went to America was everywhere has athletic tracks. In the UK, unless you’re at a club, no school has athletic tracks. I did athletics at my high school, but it was basically on the field, and once a year, they got someone to come and draw white lines on the grass field where everyone would play football. Athletics at school was very much a seasonal thing. You only do it for six weeks