PARIS — Olympic pole vault champion Nina Kennedy will defend her world title in Tokyo on September 13, while Jamaican sprint icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is set to bid farewell to the track at the World Athletics Championships after a career that redefined women’s sport.
Kennedy has not competed since last year’s Paris Games, where she became the first Australian woman to capture Olympic gold in a field event, undergoing hamstring surgery after suffering three strains in just six weeks.
The rehabilitation wiped out her entire build-up to the September 13 to 21 worlds, forcing her to forgo all Diamond Athletics League meets and enter Tokyo on a wildcard.
“Only training for six weeks, we’ve pushed my body to the absolute limits just to get here,” Kennedy said according to Reuters.
“It creates niggles elsewhere — in the back, in the quad — so I can’t say I have full confidence in my body. But I do have full confidence that the injury is okay.”
The 28-year-old estimated she was at about 80% fitness and held little hope of being at her peak at Tokyo after trying to squeeze four months’ preparation into less than two.
If it were earlier in her career, she might have skipped the event, she conceded.
But reckoning she has only three years left at the highest level, Kennedy said she wanted to give Tokyo a “red, hot crack” and did not rule out nabbing a spot on the podium.
It has been an emotional tightrope for the reigning champion, who said she had worked closely with her sports psychologist to “adjust the goalposts” and focus more on process than outcome.
“There’s a mongrel in me, I’ve got this dog in me,” Kennedy said.
“I have no right to think I can come off surgery and get back on the podium, but that’s the challenge we’ve set. That’s what excites me.”
She said a first-attempt clearance above 4.80 metres might be enough for a medal in a post-Olympic year, but would not know her limits until competition day.
“I haven’t stepped foot in an arena since Paris. I’m not sure where I’m at, but I’m embracing the vulnerability,” she added.
Taking a longer view, Kennedy, whose personal best is 4.91m, hopes to become the fifth woman to clear the five-metre barrier and ultimately perhaps even challenge Yelena Isinbayeva’s long-standing world record (5.06m).
“I see myself as the best athlete out there. Why not?” she said.
Fraser-Pryce, three-time Olympic and 10-times world gold medallist, announced she would compete for one more season in 2025, saying she had unfinished business after withdrawing from the 100 metres final at last year’s Paris Olympics due to injury.
“I didn’t get the opportunity to do what I know I could have done in that moment,” 38-year-old Fraser-Pryce said on a video call with reporters.
“And it was hurtful. It was the first time in my entire career that I’ve never been able to step to a line to compete.”
Despite limited races this season, the five-foot sprinter known affectionately as the “Pocket Rocket” qualified for her ninth world championships by finishing third at the Jamaican trials in the 100m.
Fraser-Pryce called it a “full-circle moment” from her first world championships in Osaka in 2007, where she travelled as a reserve for the 4x100m relay team.
“I just remember being so unsure of who I was, very mediocre goals, just happy to be there,” she said. “Fast forward to being here now, being able to be in this moment and confident of who I am, the woman I am, the mother I am, the athlete I am, it’s just such a remarkable feeling.”
