Canadian pole-vaulter wins gold and has eyes set on Rio Olympics

He started with a sawn-off, miniature pole, pole-vaulting around the family farm in New Mexico at four years old. Now, he’s clearing more than 5.80 metres and winning gold medals at the Pan Am Games.

For 21-year old Canadian pole vaulter Shawnacy Barber, the rise to the top has been largely because of the past 12 months of breaking records: recently he cleared 5.90 metres in the Texas Relays (eclipsing his own Canadian record of 5.71) and earlier this month cleared 5.91 to win the NCAA indoor track and field championships; an NCAA indoor record and a Canadian indoor record.

And if that wasn’t enough, his Pan Am gold-medal performance equaled a Pan Am record.

With the fourth best jump worldwide this year, Shawn has become a serious medal contender at Rio Olympics in 2016. "I'm having a really phenomenal year for me, I'm hitting the marks that I dreamed of," Shawn Barber said. “"Anything to one-up myself.”

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Canadian. During Tuesday’s meet he missed a jump 5.40 metres and said he had too much sunscreen on his hands and the pole became slippery. He went away and wiped his hands and the rest was history.

When asked about who’s decision it was to compete in Canada over the U.S., former Canadian pole-vaulter, coach and Shawn’s father, George, said it was Shawn’s decision. Shawn said he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and compete for Canada.

“The main thing today was to play, have fun, and to win," he said. "You could kind of tell, once he'd won, the fire was a little bit toned down."