Molly Caudery: British pole vaulter targets World Indoor Championships medal
- Published
Molly Caudery has the 2024 world lead in the pole vault, at 4.85m
"I'm not a big thinker, I just want to kind of run, jump, hope for the best, clear the bar."
It is a simple strategy, but one that is clearly working for pole vaulter Molly Caudery.
The 23-year-old's UK Indoor Championships title earlier this month saw her clear 4.85m - the highest vault in the world this year - propelling her to become one of the favourites for a medal at the World Indoor Championships, which run in Glasgow over the weekend.
The Cornwall-born athlete went on to better that mark at the weekend when she vaulted 4.86m in France - a jump that would have won a silver medal at the last Olympic Games.
Caudery's rise to the top of world pole vaulting has been one many had expected.
A prodigious junior, she was the youngest person to be named in the England squad for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast - when she was just 17.
She has continued to improve - winning silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and finishing fifth at last summer's outdoor World Championships in Budapest.
But it has been an injury-free winter that has allowed the Redruth athlete to climb to the top of the world rankings.
"Having the world lead going into a World Indoors is a little bit of a pressure place to be honest, but it's really exciting," she told BBC Radio Cornwall.
"I don't really see the pressure as a negative thing, for me it just kind of helps.
"I went into the British Championships ranked number one and hoping to win, and I did, so I think I can deal with it quite well and I'm just hoping to be able to do that in Glasgow.
"Coming into this year I was ranked in the top 10 but nowhere near that medal area, maybe an outside chance on a good day.
"But I've had some pretty consistent jumps over 4.80m and if I can jump 4.80m at Worlds it could definitely be a medal potential."
Caudery, who said she was "living her dream" when she won the British title last week, says she still struggles to believe she has come so far in the sport.
"Every time I compete at a major championships I take a second, and it is normally when I'm first going out there, to take a look up and realise this is my dream, I'm living this, this is my life," she said.
"I take a look up at the lights and the crowd and just take it all in, and soak it up for a minute."
Caudery set a personal best of 4.85m at the UK Indoor Championships earlier this month and has since gone on to better it
And while the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow will be loud, it will be incomparable to when Paris hosts the Olympic Games this summer.
Holly Bradshaw won a bronze medal for Great Britain in the pole vault at the last Olympics in Tokyo, with a clearance of 4.85m - one centimetre less than Caudery's new personal best.
Everyone is starting to focus on Paris, but Caudery says she still has a long way to go before she can even contemplate emulating - or even bettering - Bradshaw's achievement.
"People keep asking me about the Olympics later this year and I'm just taking it day by day right now - I need to get there first," she says.
"I know I'm in good shape and I feel good. At the end of the day I'm only competing against myself and if I jump as high as I can that could potentially get me a medal."