Pole Vaulter Might Forget Paris Olympics?
American pole vaulter who was prevented from competing in last Olympics due to a positive COVID test threatens to stay home if he qualifies for Paris games.
Three years ago, at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, U.S. pole vaulter Sam Kendricks tested positive for COVID-19 and was barred from the competition. A bronze medal winner at the 2016 games in Rio, Kendricks, who also serves as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve, had high hopes for medaling again in Tokyo.
Kendricks came to wider attention during the Rio games when he abandoned an attempt in the qualifying round to stand at attention during the the National Anthem.
The positive test set off something of a panic in Tokyo, leading to the entire Australian Track and Field Team to be briefly quarantined while they were tested. At the time, it had to be a bitter blow for Kendricks, but his camp said the right things as he was forced into isolation in his hotel while the competition went on:
“He’s handling things with class as you would expect, but for sure he is disappointed,” [his agent Paul] Doyle said. “He’s a competitor and this stings for sure. He will get through it, though.”
Fast forward three years and we’re in Eugene, Oregon for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. Kendricks is still competing, recently placing second at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, and has qualified for the finals in the pole vault, positioning him well to win a coveted spot to compete in the Paris Games.
But Kendricks, despite playing nice in Tokyo three years ago, apparently hasn’t forgotten and is in no mood to forgive, telling the press in Eugene that even if he qualifies for the Olympic squad, he might turn it down.
Here’s Sam Kilgore of The Washington Post:
“Why not?” Kendricks said. “It won’t mean anything if I don’t make the squad. But it is expository to say it. Why should I go? They left me behind and never even said, ‘I was sorry.’ ”
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“I compete against the best guys all the time,” Kendricks said. “Everybody doesn’t understand: The Olympics is for the mamas. It’s for the mamas and for Facebook and everybody back home who wants to have something to watch and a dog in the fight. But the sport is done every day for four years in advance.
“Guys like me are professionals all the time. Sometimes, you don’t get the spotlight until the Olympics, and they think it’s charity. I don’t think so. I work all the time. I work all the time, and it’s great. I love this sport. I picked it. I picked the difficulties that come with it. And I’m okay with it. It’s just the Olympics didn’t like me in 2021. Why should they like me now?”
While I don’t think anyone at the International Olympic Committee will care one way or another if Kendricks declines to compete, I’m sure the folks who are coordinating the television coverage at NBC Sports will probably notice. Earlier in the pole vault competition, K.C. Lightfoot, the current U.S. record holder, failed to qualify for the finals, making Kendricks the best American hope for a medal in Paris. And when it comes to television ratings, American viewers love watching American heroes.
I don’t know much about Kendricks, but after reviewing some of videos on YouTube, it’s clear that he’s very media savvy and trying to make a point that overly restrictive COVID policies unfairly robbed him of a chance to compete, policies that in retrospect, were profoundly mistaken. All he seems to want is for the bodies that devised these policies to acknowledge their mistake and apologize.
In the end, I think Kendricks will go to Paris if he qualifies. While he’s right that the Olympics are for the masses as much as the athletes, he also knows what winning a gold medal would mean for his career. But I also think that he won’t be holding his breath waiting for an apology that he deserves.