Molly Caudery’s dreams of an Olympic gold medal are over after she crashed out in pole vault qualifying.
The British record holder arrived in Paris as one of the favourites having jumped higher than anyone else in the world this year.
But Caudery missed all three attempts at her opening height of 4.55 metres – way down on her personal best of 4.92m from last month – meaning she will not be in Wednesday night’s final.
Her decision to avoid the earlier jumps of 4.20m and 4.40m were further brought into question when all athletes who cleared both those jumps at the first attempt qualified for Wednesday’s final.
The 24-year-old stood with her hands on her head after her final effort, in which she almost missed the mat on the way down.
Caudery then clapped the crowd before breaking down in tears, as her fellow competitors rushed over to console her.
‘It’s totally heartbreaking,’ said Caudery. ‘It was not the Olympic experience I was hoping for.
‘I’m just so sorry to everyone back at home and I just wished I could have done better for everyone and myself of course but I’m going to try and learn from this.
‘I’m in the best shape of my life, I’ve had an amazing warm-up, I didn’t feel too nervous, I love a big crowd. And for some reason, it wasn’t my day. I’ll go and talk to my coach and figure some things out.’
Moments earlier, the world indoor champion had been a shoulder to cry on for her team-mate Holly Bradshaw, who failed to clear 4.40m to also miss out on the final.
Bradshaw, who won Britain’s first Olympic pole vault medal at Tokyo 2020 with a bronze, is retiring from the sport at the end of the season.
‘I’m just crushed,’ said the tearful 32-year-old. ‘I’ve only got a few competitions left, so I am heartbroken. It’s been a really hard year and I wanted to come out and do myself proud and I really feel like I haven’t.
‘This is the first time I was pain free all year, so I don’t really know what happened. I know it sounds daft, but the track and the environment and everything was too good and I was caught on the back foot, which is frustrating about pole vault.’
‘I just wanted to come out and do my dad proud. He passed away in November, and I really hope that I did that even though it didn’t go well.
‘My priority is to be a mum now, so I want to start a family with my husband.’
