Curious rush-hour commuters paused to see what all the fuss was about, before shuffling off to catch their buses and trains home. Surely, McCartney, the surprise bronze medalist at last year's Rio de Janiero Olympics, had never performed in a more bizarre setting than Auckland's Britomart Atrium. "Pole vaulting is still a young sport, especially women's vault, and most New Zealanders won't have been exposed to it before or witnessed a competition, especially this close, where they can see what's going on," said McCartney. Canadian Alysha Newman, a bronze medalist at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, conquered her warm-up gremlins to dramatically scale 4.40m. McCartney has another chance to challenge that national mark on Sunday, when she contests the International Track Challenge at AUT Millennium in Mairangi Bay.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 22, 2017 19:08 UTC