NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE

(This is the fourth in a series of features profiling former Baylor student-athletes "Going for the Gold" at the Olympics that begin with opening ceremonies on Friday in Tokyo.)

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Going back to his freshman year at Baylor, KC Lightfoot has gone against the world's best pole vaulters, placing fourth in a historic NCAA Outdoor Championships and then earning a spot on the World Championship team with a then-career-best mark of 18-10 ¾.
            But, this was different.
            "I've jumped with all those guys before, but that was maybe one of the first times that I've jumped with them whenever it was fairly quiet amongst the field," Lightfoot said of last month's U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. "You could tell that everybody was pretty focused the whole time."
            It took a personal-best outdoor mark of 5.85 meters – 19 feet, 2 ¼ inches – for the 21-year-old Lightfoot to earn a spot on the USA Olympics team with three-time NCAA champion Chris Nilsen and two-time World Champion Sam Kendricks, the American record-holder and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist.
            "There's a lot riding on it, for sure," said Lightfoot, who turned pro in April after breaking the collegiate indoor record and then winning the NCAA Indoor title with a meet-record mark of 19-5 ½. "I've jumped in some big meets before . . . the World Championships. But, I don't know if there's much that's at the same level as the Olympic Trials."
            One of just three vaulters to clear the bar at 19-2 ¼, Lightfoot watched as 2020 USA Indoor champion Matt Ludwig and former Texas A&M All-American Jacob Wooten both went out at 19-4 ¼ after missing their first attempts at 19-2 ¼.
            "At that point, I didn't care anymore," Lightfoot said. "When we went up to 5.90 (meters), we knew the team was me, Sam and Chris. Obviously, I would have liked to jump higher, but it's hard to get over the emotional rush that you just made the Olympic team."
            Even as one of the youngest Olympians on the USA track & field team, "this is just a dream come true," he said.
            "I've been trying to do this my whole life. So, for it to finally pay off, it's really humbling. . . . I guess it's not the most common first thing to say when you're just starting any sport, but from the beginning, I wanted to be one of the best out there, I wanted to be a professional, I wanted to make the Olympic team. And here I am at 21, it took a few years to get here – I've been jumping for seven or eight years – but we're finally here."
            Already a two-time state champion from Missouri with a dozen 18-foot vaults before he even got to Baylor, Lightfoot stamped himself as the best pole vaulter in program history. He owns the school's top 10 indoor marks, including the school-record 19-8 ¼ at the Texas Tech Shootout back in February, and six of the top 10 outdoor.
            A four-time All-American, Lightfoot won three-consecutive Big 12 Indoor titles and captured his only conference outdoor championship two years ago as a freshman. That same year, he finished fourth in what Baylor coach Todd Harbour described as "the greatest vault competition in NCAA history."
            South Dakota's Nilsen won with a meet-record vault of 19-6 ¼, with current world record-holder Armand "Mondo" Duplantis of LSU finishing second in 19-0 ¼. It was the first time in NCAA Championship history that seven vaulters cleared 5.70 meters (18-8 ¼).
            "I feel intimidation is there for some people. I'm going to be honest, it used to be there for me, too," Lightfoot said of the 19-foot vaulters, an elite group that he's since joined. "But, I've known Mondo for a little bit, and I've competed with him multiple times. After a while, the intimidation factor goes away. It turns into competitiveness, so we're all trying to jump and compete against each other."
            At that same meet, Harbour said of Lightfoot, "The sky is the limit for KC."
            That's why he's not going to sell himself short going into the Olympics that begin with Friday's opening ceremonies in Tokyo. Ranked 20^th in the world, Lightfoot said his goal is to get through next Friday's preliminaries and make it into the top 12 for the Aug. 3 final.
            "I've got to look at that first before going for a medal," he said, "because you can't win a medal if you don't make it to the finals. . . . Right now, I'm jumping pretty good, so it could be my time, you never know. But, I'll have three Olympic Games before I'm 30, and people say their prime is around 28, 29. So, right at that 30 mark, I'll be on my third Olympic Games."
            Lightfoot was off to a great start in 2020 as well, winning a Big 12 title and headed to the NCAA Indoor Championships with the No. 2 mark in the country at 19-1 ½. He earned the first of two South Central Regional Field Athlete of the Year honors and was added to The Bowerman watch list, which is "like being added to the Heisman list," Harbour said.
            In line to potentially qualify for the Olympics that year, Lightfoot had his season come to a screeching halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic while he was sitting in Albuquerque, N.M., waiting to compete.
            "It wasn't too bad for me. Actually, I think it probably helped me," he said. "I know it was a really difficult time for a lot of people. They couldn't train, they couldn't practice in some places. But thankfully, I had places to train, and I kind of just used that year to grow and get a little stronger and work on my jump. I went from 5.80 that year to now where I'm jumping 6.0, which is a 20-centimeter jump. That's a lot in a year."
            More than probably any other event, the pole vault is a close-knit fraternity where they pull for each other and remain friends even while they're competing fiercely against each other. At a Diamond League meet earlier this month in Stockholm, Lightfoot was hanging out with Duplantis "almost every day and actually went golfing with him."
            "He's jumping out of the roof right now," Lightfoot said of Mondo, who will represent his native country of Sweden. "There is nobody . . . he's just on another level right now. So, it's awesome to watch. He's definitely going to be the favorite to win gold, and he's going to be a hard man to beat. But, nothing's impossible. Anyone can have a bad day."

"GOING FOR THE GOLD"

John Peers, Men's Tennis, Australia
Wil London, Track & Field, USA
Brittney Griner, Women's Basketball, USA

NOTHING’S IMPOSSIBLE

Players Mentioned

KC Lightfoot

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