The best female pole vaulter on the planet is Australia’s only reigning Olympic athletics champion, and she will compete in Tokyo in two weeks at the world championships to defend the gold she won in 2023. But while spectators will recognise the Australian as she walks into Japan’s National Stadium, they will in truth see a different Nina Kennedy.
“I don’t have full confidence in my body,” the 28-year-old says, two weeks out from an unprecedented challenge in her esteemed career. “But that’s OK, because I have learned that there are a hundred ways to get the same outcome, and we’re just going a different route to normal.”
Much has changed for the hyper-competitive Kennedy since the Paris Games 13 months ago. Physically, her left hamstring has been surgically repaired. “They cut me open,” she says. “I was on crutches for quite a few weeks, and the fact that I’m rehabbed and back training, and I’m in full force to go to the world champs, is a massive win in itself.”
The decision to pursue such a drastic intervention was difficult. Kennedy had been struggling with repeated strains in her left quad, including three within six weeks at the start of the year. Her surgeon told her the choice was either step back from training for 12 weeks – but with no promise the repeated injuries would stop – or go under the knife. “Honestly, the rehab took such a long time,” she says. “It probably took three to four months, so I’ve only really been training properly for four weeks.”
Kennedy says she has no regrets about the decision to have surgery, but it has meant she will travel to Tokyo without a single competitive warm-up. “There was really just no other option than to, if I wanted to go to the world champs, open [the season] there and do no lead-in competitions.”
In 2025, there is much enthusiasm around Australian athletics. Seven medals in Paris, the emergence of Gout Gout, the Australian team’s outstanding performance at the 2024 under-20 world championships, and strong Diamond League performances this year have helped build expectation for Tokyo, and all with Brisbane 2032 on the horizon.
Injuries have curtailed some of that optimism. The dual Paris bronze-medallist Jemima Montag has withdrawn from the world titles, as has sprinter Lachlan Kennedy, who shocked the international athletics community with a silver medal in the 60m at the world indoor championships in March. While these are some of Australia’s most prominent athletics talents, neither enjoy the status of Nina Kennedy.
A world record, a personal best, defending gold: these were Kennedy’s expectations for Tokyo while training in Perth at the start of the year. Now, her outlook has shifted. “I want to say I’m at like 80%, and 80% is good enough to make a final. And at the world champs final, anything can happen.”
She famously shared gold with longtime rival Katie Moon of the US at the most recent of those finals, in Budapest two years ago. Some described the moment as the peak of sporting respect, while others were left clamouring for more vaulting. Kennedy has said previously she wouldn’t again choose to share gold. Despite her challenging lead-in to Tokyo, she reiterates she wouldn’t repeat what happened in Hungary. “Probably not,” she says. “I’m in this phase now where like, nah, I want to win. I just have this mongrel in me, I have this dog in me, and I don’t think I’d share again.”
From the outside, the pair’s rivalry has intensified given Kennedy’s former coach Paul Burgess is now on Moon’s team. Asked whether it will be “bizarre” to see him with her, the Australian is guarded. “I wouldn’t use the word bizarre,” she says. “I don’t know what word I’d use, but look, I’ve seen it all season, so it’s not going to be a shock to me when I get there.”
For Kennedy, Tokyo is about more than just winning. Many looking forward to Tokyo may be disappointed that Australia’s best track and field performer’s chances for the podium have been diminished. But the woman herself sees the meet as a new opportunity.
“It is adjusting the goalposts a little bit,” she says. “Last year it was all about ‘I will win the thing, and that’s what we’re doing’. And [now] we definitely have to be more gentle with myself.”
As she opens up about the challenges of the past five months, it’s clear there is more to Kennedy’s change than the scar on her leg. “There’s only a few years left in my career, so there’s a part of me that only wants to rock up to a competition if I’m in the best shape I can be, and I know I can really win,” she says. “But the part that my team and I are really trying to embrace is this idea that there’s more to sport than just winning. The fact that we’re going on this journey, we’re giving it a crack, we’re being vulnerable, we’re putting ourselves out there … the lessons I’ve learned during this process are insane.”
Regular sessions with her psychologist have helped reframe her expectations and focus on what she can control. She admits, however, as someone who prides herself on her single-mindedness, it has been an adjustment.
“I should have no right to have the surgery I did and to come back to worlds and think I can get on the podium, I have no right to think that,” she says. “We’ve really had to channel my mongrel and channel that competitive person into this challenge of ‘yeah, let’s see if I can do that’.”
