Nina Kennedy

Biography

Since a challenging Tokyo Olympics, Perth pole vaulter Nina Kennedy has compiled an impressive record. She was Commonwealth champion in 2022, world champion in 2023 and Olympic champion in 2024.

After two contrasting international seasons in 2021 and 2022 Nina Kennedy was terrific in her delayed start to her 2023 season. After a challenging Tokyo Olympic Games campaign, Nina’s 2022 season was brilliant with bronze at the world championships, Commonwealth gold and a win in the Diamond League final. She had placed in the top-3 in 11 of 12 meets and 1st or 2nd in her four Diamond Leagues.

In early October 2022, after a short end of season break, Nina returned to training but had a sore back. Scans showed a fracture in the L5 vertebra, resulting in a four-week rest before she slowly resumed training. After missing the domestic season, she opened her 2023 campaign in Doha in May. At the next two Diamond League meets in June, she was back to her very best with third in Florence and first in Paris in a season’s best of 4.77m.

At the Budapest World Championships Nina was extraordinary. Always in a podium position, she was over 4.75m on her second attempt, then 4.80m and 4.85m at her first attempt – the later an Australian record. But she continued nailing 4.90m on her third attempt. American Katie Moon matched her as they remained tied in first. They spoke and agree to the recently adopted World Athletics rule where they can share the medal. The clearance was another raising of the Australian record and Nina became just our 11th world champion. The height would have won gold at the previous world championships and equal gold at the Tokyo Olympics.

A week later Nina competed at the Zurich Diamond League where the pole vault was held indoors at a railway station, and she won with a higher vault of 4.91m. It was a world lead, and she was now the seventh highest vaulter in history. It was her fourth raising of the National record.

But there would be more injury challengers for Nina – she outlined on social media.

“So after the season finished last year in September (2023) – we scanned my back and found a stress fracture.

I had this exact injury at the same time a year before,” Nina wrote.

“After two months of sitting on my a.. (hence no training content), I’ve started building back up slowly and things are going well.” She commenced running in December.

But she was quickly back on track, opening her season in Perth in late March 2024 with 4.62m, then winning Nationals with 4.65m and then placing second in May at the Doha Diamond League vaulting 4.73m.

Nina’s confidence grew in the leadup to the Paris Olympics, winning four consecutive meets.

In the Paris Olympic final Nina was peerless, clearing at the first attempt the heights of 4.80m, 4.85m and 4.90m – the later an equal PB and equal Australian record height. None of her competitors could match her 4.90m height and she was crowned Olympic champion. It had been a nail-biting 3-hour 22-minute competition.

“I have genuinely thought about (winning the Olympics) every single day since those Budapest World Championships,” said Nina. Considering the length of the competition, she said to herself: “The winner of this competition is going to be the person that can maintain their focus for the longest… I was really trying to calm myself out there.”

Nina became just the 12th Australian woman to win gold in athletics at the Olympics and just the third in the last 36 years behind Cathy Freeman and Sally Pearson. She also became the first Australian woman to win a gold medal in a field event.

After resuming training in January 2025, a hamstring issue continued to inhibit Nina, forcing her in April to decide to have surgery. Despite the setback, expected to put her out for three months, Nina was confident of competing at the Tokyo world championships where she starts as the joint defending champion.

+ + + + +

Nina Kennedy was born in Busselton, three-hours south of Perth, but completed primary school in Perth where she joined her first club Perry Lakes Little Athletics, aged 11, because she loved the athletics day in primary school. She started pole vaulting a year later when she was 12 after a pole vault coach talent identification her at an athletics meet.

In 2012, aged 14, Nina Kennedy placed second in the senior Australian pole vault championships with a PB of 4.10m. She progressed in 2013, setting a best of 4.31m and placing fifth at the IAAF World Youth (U18) Championships. At the 2014 IAAF World Juniors, she vaulted a PB 4.40m, just missing a medal finishing fourth.

In February 2015 in Perth, she made a massive breakthrough in one competition. She raised her PB three times in the one competition, clearing 4.43m, then 4.50m and finally 4.59m – a world junior record. This mark qualified her for the IAAF world championships in Beijing, where unfortunately she no heighted in her senior debut. She suffered the same fate at the 2016 IAAF World Juniors.

In March 2017 she qualified for the IAAF world championships in London, but less than two weeks before the world championships she withdrew battling a quad injury.  She wrote on Instagram: “Deciding to withdraw from World Champs has broken me, I’m speechless. Onwards and upwards nevertheless. Thank you to everyone in my support team + good luck to the Aussie team.”

Three years on from her brilliant 2015 season as a 17-year-old, Kennedy was better than ever in 2018. She first raised her PB to 4.60m and a week later moved to number three Australian all-time with a vault of 4.71m. At the National championships she vaulted an excellent 4.60m, as she defeated New Zealand’s Olympic bronze medallist Eliza McCartney, who no heighted. At the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games she won bronze. She was injured six weeks prior to the Games and only had two vault sessions – an achievement she regards as the best moment in her sporting career.

Injury dominated 2019 with quad, hamstring and glute tears, plus spine/back troubles.

She also battled mental health. “There were stages where I was so low I physically couldn’t complete of even start any of my training sessions,” wrote Kennedy.

Pre-COVID in early 2020, Kennedy was back to her best, clearing her second best ever height of 4.61m. Over the summer of 2020/21, she was incredibly consistent with eight consecutive competition at 4.70m or higher. The form led to her raising the Australian record to 4.82m at the Sydney Track Classic.

It was a terrific summer season for Nina Kennedy in 2021 but her preparation for the Olympics were marred by injury and COVID-19 disruptions.

At the nationals she tore her calf in the warm-up, but was still determined to compete. “I kept jumping through it, which made it worse. I jumped 4.75m there and I won, which was an automatic selection for the Olympics. That was a big rehab, it was four to five weeks,” said Nina. Then mid-year during her last session before she was due to travel to Queensland for her training and preparation for the Olympics, she injured her abductor – an 8cm tear.

But Nina did her best to remained positive in the leadup to Tokyo. Returning from the abductor, she did her quad in two different places.

The final challenge for Nina was when she found herself in a window-less room in the days leading up to the Olympic pole vault, having been involved in a COVID-19 scare. She was forced to isolate away from the Olympic village just days out from competition after having been at the same training venue as American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks, who would later test positive for COVID.

“That took such a mental toll. With my mental demons and being locked in this room, it wasn’t great. I was very, very close to pulling out. That would have been the easier thing to do.”

But Nina, battled on, making it to the event in an empty Olympic stadium. She cleared 4.40m, but missed her attempts at 4.55m in the rain-effect competition.

“The fact that I even got out there and I was standing on the runway was a sigh of relief,” Nina said.

After a 10 week break, in November she was back in to training, and enjoying her return to the sport.

“I’ve dealt with Tokyo, that’s in the past so it’s full steam to the Commonwealth Games and World Champs.”

Biggest challenge: The biggest challenge I’ve faced in the sport and out of the sport is my mental health. I’ve had a few occurrences of major depression. There were stages where I was so low I physically couldn’t complete of even start any of my training sessions…Most influential: The people closest to me. I’ve never really had a sporting hero – people inspire me because of their whole selves. My family, my coach Paul Burgess, my friends, my training partners and other athletes I know on a personal level inspire me.

@ 20 August 2025 david.tarbotton@athletics.org.au