Eliza McCartney

Private life

McCartney was born in Auckland, where she still lives in the seaside suburb of Devonport. Her father William McCartney previously competed in the high jump while her mother Donna Marshall previously competed as a gymnast. She has two younger brothers. She attended Vauxhall School and later Takapuna Grammar School, where she was in the same year as the singer-songwriter Lorde; the two played netball together. McCartney was most fond of netball growing up, with her height and agility giving her an advantage in playing defence. She also participated in a myriad of other sports in her youth, including cross country running, basketball, touch rugby, squash, tennis, swimming, and water polo. Eventually, she moved onto track and field, being a successful high jumper in her early teens before beginning pole vaulting in 2011. McCartney studies physiology at the University of Auckland.

Career

In 2011, McCartney was 14 when she went to former pole vaulter Jeremy McColl—he won gold in that discipline at the 2004 Oceania Athletics Championships—to try out the sport. McColl remains her coach. In 2012, McCartney won the national youth (under 18) title and the New Zealand secondary school championship. The following year she broke the New Zealand youth record and was selected for the 2013 World Youth Championships in Athletics where she finished fourth.

In July 2014 McCartney took the bronze medal at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics, with a vault of 4.45 m (14 ft 7 in) which was her first New Zealand national record. In 2015 she claimed her first senior national title at the New Zealand Athletics Championships. and gained the silver medal at the Universiade with a height of 4.40 m (14 ft 5 in).

On 19 December 2015 McCartney set a world junior record of 4.64 m (15 ft 2 ¹⁄₂ in) at Auckland's Mount Smart Stadium. On 17 January 2016 she vaulted 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in) in Brisbane, Australia improving her own national senior and junior records (but not the world junior record). McCartney and McColl's long-term goal had been for her to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, but it became clear during 2015 that the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro may already be a possibility.

On 23 February 2016, she jumped 4.71 m (15 ft 5 ¹⁄₄ in) at the Vertical Pursuit international pole vault competition at Millennium Institute of Sport in Auckland, setting four new records: New Zealand national, New Zealand under 20, New Zealand resident, and New Zealand all comers. She was subsequently added to the New Zealand team to the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships

On 5 March 2016, she jumped 4.80 m (15 ft 8 ³⁄₄ in) at the national championships in Dunedin, to surpass her own New Zealand record. It is not clear whether or not this set a new Oceania record. The IAAF normally requires a minimum of three competitors in an event for a record to be ratified and in this case, there were only two. Regardless, the Oceanian record was broken later in July 2016 by Alana Boyd of Australia, with a jump of 4.81 m.

McCartney made her senior international debut at the March 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon. She placed fifth with a vault of 4.70 m (15 ft 5 in), setting a new New Zealand indoor record.

In April 2016, McCartney was selected to compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In the Olympic final, she cleared 4.50 m, 4.60 m, 4.70 m, and her personal best 4.80 m on her first attempts, but was eliminated after failing to clear 4.85 m. Her 4.80 m result and no misses up to that height saw her place ahead of Australia's Alana Boyd to win the bronze medal. At age 19 years and 252 days, McCartney became the youngest Olympic medallist in the women's pole vault. She was also only the fourth New Zealand Olympic medallist in a field event, after Yvette Williams (long jump, 1952), Valerie Adams (shot put, 2008, 2012, 2016), and Tomas Walsh (shot put, 2016). BMX rider Sarah Walker, an Olympic silver medallist, approached McCartney at the Halberg Awards ceremony on 18 February 2016 and has been mentoring her since.

On 22 February 2017, McCartney equalled her indoor national record of 4.70 m (15 ft 5 in) at the Vertical Pursuit, held at Auckland's Britomart precinct. Four days later, she jumped a height of 4.82 m (15 ft 9 ³⁄₄ in) at the Auckland Track Challenge, breaking her own national record and the Oceanian record.

Awards and recognition

McCartney won the Emerging Talent category of New Zealand's Halberg Awards for 2015 at an awards ceremony held on 18 February 2016. The year before, she was a finalist in the Halberg Awards Emerging Talent category, which was won by cyclist Regan Gough.

McCartney's 4.80 m vault that won her the Olympic bronze medal was voted New Zealand's Favourite Sporting Moment at the Halberg Awards for 2016.

Sponsorship and advertising work

In October 2016, McCartney became an ambassador for Beef and Lamb New Zealand, joining existing athlete ambassadors Lisa Carrington, Sophie Pascoe, and Sarah Walker.

In December 2016, McCartney featured alongside several other notable New Zealanders in an aircraft safety video for Air New Zealand, entitled Summer of Safety.

National titles