Jenn Suhr

Background

Jenn Suhr has been the face of the pole vault in America for so long, it’s easy to forget what a latecomer she was to the sport. A star basketball player at Roberts Wesleyan, it was only after she was challenged by her future coach and husband to try pole vaulting at the age of 22 that she picked up her first pole. Less than a year after she first took to the pole vault, she won her first national title. And only three years after that, she owned the American Record and an Olympic silver medal.

Since then, Jenn has been one of the dominant pole vaulters in the world and virtually untouchable in the US. She has now won seventeen national championships and in 2012, became the second American woman to win Olympic gold in the pole vault and ended the season ranked number one in the world. The following year, Jenn won the US Indoor Championships with a height of 5.02m/16ft 5.5in, a new world record.

Last year, Jenn took gold at the World Indoor Track and Field Championships in Portland, Oregon, held in the US for the first time in nearly 30 years. Though a virus prevented kept Jenn out of the medals in the Olympic Final in Rio, she was still ranked among the top three in the world for 2016.

The following year, Jenn again qualified for the IAAF World Championships, a feat she repeated again in 2019, marking the tenth consecutive outdoor World Championships or US Olympic team she has qualified for.

Deeply rooted in Western New York, Jenn stays close to home when not traveling for competitions. An animal lover, Jenn has a great pyrenees, a cat and is a sometimes temporary care-giver for fawns.