Greece’s Stefanidi wins women’s pole vault

The biggest surprise of the night was Eliza McCartney, a 19-year-old from New Zealand, who vaulted a new personal best on her way to the podium and a bronze medal, just beating out the 32-year-old Boyd.

Stefanidi shouted in ecstasy as she cleared the bar at 4.85 and celebrated before she even landed.

Greece’s Ekaterini Stefanidi won the Olympic pole vault on Friday and her country’s first athletics gold since the 2004 Athens Games, then defended its integrity after barred Russian Yelena Isinbayeva blasted the event as sub-par without her in the field.

Morris is a 24-year-old SC native who won the silver at the 2016 World Indoor Championships.

Isinbayeva, who announced her retirement earlier in the day, said the 2016 gold medallist would have an asterisk against her name.

“Honestly, it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t win gold today”, Morris said, “because it’s really gonna keep my fire burning through 2020”.

“I feel disgusting, ” Suhr said.

Although McCartney is placed as seventh in the world this year, she did a ideal jump with 4.80, making it the best performance of her life earning her a bronze. “She is someone that I looked up to my entire life and it’s kind of disappointing to hear things like that”.

Friday’s final saw defending champion Jenn Suhr, who has been battling illness since arriving in Brazil, crash out early. “It’s some sort of respiratory infection”, Suhr said after her elimination.

“It is such a crappy feeling to know you have worked for years for this and this to happen. It’s getting scary. I just want to get out of here”, she added.

Besides her gold in London, Suhr also won silver at the 2008 Beijing Games and won gold at the 2016 World Indoor Championships in March.

“This morning I was coughing up blood and I threw up twice out there”.

Both women topped out at 4.85 meters (15 feet, 11 inches) but Stefanidi, a Stanford graduate, had one fewer miss to come out on top.