This marks his third consecutive USA Indoor Championship win in pole vault. “I’m just lucky I was able to go there and accomplish my goal, and that was 5.85 meters. There’s a lot of great jumpers there, and we had a lot of great competition there,” Kendricks said.
Most impressive was that the Mississippi native jumped 5.85 meters on a 4.90 meter pole. “That’s the longest pole I’m going to jump on right now. Maybe in the future, I will grab a pole that is a couple of inches higher,” he said. “I stopped after 5.85 meters since I only had three weeks of training. I didn’t think I would have been smart to have pursued higher heights, so I wanted to match the European champion, Piotr Lisek, since he jumped 5.85 meters in the European Indoor Championships.”
Ever gracious, Kendricks acknowledged that it is a team effort that gets him over the bar, and he relaunched his Team Kendricks website. “We are letting people know that it’s a team effort to get me over the bar,” he said. “We reformatted the website, and we share our dream, and we share our knowledge for young pole vaulters in the future, which I am really happy to do.”
His website’s motto is “always aim higher,” and rightfully so. “Always aim higher is not necessarily what you do as a pole vaulter, since you need to have that base everywhere in athletics, but it is always something to shoot for. That’s the ultimate goal,” he said.
Kendricks had nothing but the kindest remarks for Olympic gold medalist and fellow pole vaulter Thiago Braz da Silva. “Thiago is a sweet boy and he’s a good friend of mine,” he said. “I certainly made a lot of friends when I was down in Brazil. That’s for sure.”
To learn more about American Olympian Sam Kendricks, check out his official Team Kendricks website, and follow him on Twitter.
