POLE MODEL – Chaos Agent Caudery
Top British pole vaulter Molly Caudery goes into the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo with a massive chance of a medal.
It would be an understatement to say Caudery’s had a couple of years to remember, and a few setbacks she’d rather forget, writes Helen M Jerome. For the Cornish-born athlete is one of the breakthrough track and field superstars that these events really need to push them into the limelight.
Pole vaulter Molly Caudery is pure Cornwall, born in Illogan, not far from the stormy Atlantic coast. And she’s determined not to be blown off course by the prevailing winds of fame, fortune and freak accidents. With just shy of 400k followers on Instagram and a strong coach in Scott Simpson at Thames Valley Harriers, the 25-year-old had already experienced the highs of being world leader in her event. She boasted the world indoor title and European Championship bronze medal when she arrived at the Paris Olympics in 2024 as a shoo-in for another medal. She was routinely beating her personal best almost every week. It was almost too smooth and easy.
Then disaster struck, as she could not make it past qualifying in the Stade de France, even failing to clear the opening bar of 4.55m – or as it’s termed “no-heighting”. Caudery’s first reaction was almost like grieving, then coming to terms and making peace with herself, and now being hungrier than ever.
Her fellow competitors, like the Paris gold medallist Nina Kennedy of Australia (who won jointly with USA vaulter Katie Moon), said Caudery was really brave to come back out and start jumping again. When you watch the pole vaulters (female and male) you’ll immediately see that they’re a close-knit bunch, who support one another above and beyond rivalry, staying and clapping as the leader goes for a new record vault.
Turn Around
What made things trickier for Caudery was tearing her calf just after the Olympics while training. But she’s turned each setback on its head by using the time to prepare for the following season. After a good, healthy winter she’s been able to train week on week and just build. “This year,” she says, “my numbers are even better than last.”
Together with coach Simpson, who she calls “the best PV coach in the world”, they’ve accelerated their preparation by strategising and using the actual competitions as more training. She freely admits she’s just not as good in training as in competition when it comes to actual technical pole vaulting. One of the trickiest skills is moving up to a bigger pole as the contest progresses, so Caudery uses each competition as a bridge to get to the major championships.
She explains that there are different lengths, but also different stiffness levels for the poles. As you reach the business end of the competition, it takes something stiffer to catapult you into the air more. In turn, this means the athlete needs more speed and, of course, confidence. In addition to pole vaulting being one of the most technically complex athletic events around.
Neither Paris gold medallist has matched Caudery’s personal best this season, with only New Zealand’s Eliza McCartney coming close, clearing 4.80 metres at the World Indoors and winning the silver. So you can see why she’s hungry to medal in Tokyo – with the final on Wednesday 17th September.
Growing Up
Caudery grew up in Cornwall with sport all around her. She did gymnastics until she turned 11, then threw herself into multi-events, with lots of hurdling and high jumping. By the age of 15 she’d settled on the pole vault. Only drawback was the nearest indoor facilities were three hours away, but she stuck at it for three long years of constant travel, while coached by her own father. Then, having finished fifth in the 2018 Commonwealth Games she moved away to take up an athletics scholarship in Miami aged just 18.
Next big decision came when the pandemic hit and left Florida to move back to the UK, and importantly Loughborough, to study sports science. Again, the support of fellow athletes, notably UK pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw, inspired and pushed Caudery onwards and, crucially, upwards! She also has the perspective to admit that when she thinks about herself now – as a role model – she wishes she’d had someone like herself to look up to when she was a kid of 11.
Nothing’s ever been straightforward for chaos agent Caudery though. She’s had the full set of athlete injuries, and then some. There’s the broken wrist from going down a firefighter’s pole, broken fingers, a broken foot, and she’s broken her nose twice. Oh, and had surgery twice on her Achilles.
But nothing compares to her finger injury on Christmas Eve in 2021. She trapped her finger between the rack and the bar in the gym and very nearly chopped it off altogether – it was just about hanging on. Many might have called it a day, but she addressed the chaos head on and continued to pole vault in her head. She spent her recovery and rehab imagining that she was competing by “visualising non-stop”. So when she returned to actual vaulting, she says that some things she needed to work on almost disappeared because she’d already visualised the perfect jump.
Fellow Freak
In terms of inspiration, Caudery adores watching the men’s pole vault record-holder, Mondo Duplantis, calling him a “freak of nature”. She happily takes bits and pieces from other vaulters and weaves them into her own process to create a well-rounded combination. She also feeds off pressure situations and reckons it brings out the best in her.
There’s also the boost she feels with a good crowd behind her. Maybe this is why she prefers this to training, it makes such a difference to her, and she feeds off the noise in the arena. In fact, she says it elevates her. And this is the right event for that, as one indoor meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil, France, saw her improve her personal best by a ridiculous 8cm in a single vault.
Of course, Caudery likes to give back, and senses the buzz that the pole vault brings to those crowds at the moment. But she admits that field events need a boost in a time of dwindling attention spans.
Bring It On
Everyone has an idea of how to make track and especially field excite the public. Caudery feels some thinking outside the box may be necessary, bringing new ideas and “being a bit innovative”. It’s been tried with Keely Hodgkinson’s Keely Klassic, and Michael Johnson has tried to get eyeballs on track events through his Grand Slam. While she’d naturally like a field-event type of Grand Slam, like everyone else she’s keen to see what happens in Budapest in September 2026 and the brand new Ultimate Champions contest.
In the meantime, she likes to put on a real show and make it a spectacle for whoever is watching. To achieve this she’ll even do a meet in a railway station, when people do double takes, seeing a pole vault in the midst of their commute.
For new followers Molly Caudery does her bit by engaging fully in social media, knowing you can either ignore or embrace it. If you survey her Instagram and TikTok feeds you’ll clock that she loves content creation. While realising there’s a darker side to social media, she turns a blind eye to it and rises above any negative comments. Here she aims to inspire each and every one of those 400k people who follow her. And if she gets a medal in Tokyo, those numbers will surely rise.
Pole vault qualification Monday 15th September, final Wednesday 17th September
