KC’s KC Lightfoot set American pole vault record against gravity in more ways than one

As he considered the question of just how he ascended into the vaunted U.S. pole vault record at the Music City Track Carnival on June 2 in Nashville, KC Lightfoot sat in his Lee’s Summit apartment last week and started to laugh.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “A little bit of luck, a little bit of skill. You mix ‘em together, get something to work. I don’t know!”

This wasn’t mere humility from the 23-year-old, who seemingly has been on this trajectory since his early daredevil days of backflipping on a trampoline and cliff diving and perhaps imprudently driving a dirt bike.

And it should be stressed that this hardly was out of nowhere for someone so fearless and talented: As one of the best pole vaulters in the world for several years, he tied for fourth in the Tokyo Olympics (where Park Hill’s Chris Nilsen earned a silver medal.)

Just the same, though, the difference in the day he soared to a height only three men in the world ever have surpassed in some ways is a mystery to him.

It’s hard to even retrace his steps, after all. He was so awash in adrenaline afterward that the only thing he really remembers about the jump of 6.07 meters (19 feet 11 inches) is “running off, looking like a doofus” as he celebrated.

So while it’s all still a blank as he continues to process it, he knows he did nothing different than he normally would along the way.

His routine was the same as it ever was, including arriving and warming up at the usual times and enjoying his typical sort of meet-day breakfast (biscuits and gravy, hash browns and chocolate milk at First Watch) and lunch (beef and cheddar brisket, medium, on white bread with no mayo from Firehouse Subs).

What he does recall with clarity, though, contradicts conventional wisdom about maximizing performance.

Instead of knowing or even believing he was about to do this, well, he didn’t feel like he couldn’t. But …

“It’s not like I felt like I really could,” he said.

For one thing, Lightfoot still was amped up about earlier breaking a personal record by hitting the 6.0 barrier in an outdoor meet for the first time.

And after he “blew through” the bar on his first attempt at 6.07 — “which isn’t really a great scenario,” he said — he found himself questioning the new pole he was using and fixated on what might be a problematic crosswind blowing from the right.

Looking at the flag blowing to the left and reconsidering the grip on his pole, Lightfoot was filled with doubt as he started into his approach run.

“A lot of things have to go right to jump 6.07 … and I didn’t really think I was going to make it,” he said, smiling and adding, “I was standing at the back of the runway scared, let me tell you.”

If that didn’t seem like the optimal mindset, though, the breakthrough attests to something deeper within Lightfoot — who was so drained after setting the record that he wisely opted not to try to go higher.

Taming all that was swirling around and within him and summoning the will and concentration speaks to a hard-wired baseline of training — primarily with his father, Anthony, a two-time state champion himself — and inner resilience.

Take it from someone who knows in numerous ways: his agent and manager Jeff Hartwig, the St. Charles, Missouri, native and two-time Olympian and former longtime U.S. indoor and outdoor record holder.

After blowing through the pole that way, Hartwig said, “now in your mind, you’re like, ‘OK, do I trust myself?’”

Then consider that the mind game starts with navigating a pressure point pole vaulters and high jumpers know well but might be lost on others: Literally setting the bar for such an attempt, Hartwig reminds, is a different sort of mental challenge than letting loose your best effort in most other disciplines or sports.

“You choose the American record before you make the attempt, and there’s no sports psychologist in the world that would convince me that that’s not going to be on your mind when you’re standing on the back of the runway,” Hartwig said from France on Thursday. “Along with all the other things you’ve got to think about to make sure that you actually do the best jump you can.

“That’s the mark of a guy that really is a champion. And it’s a testament to the greatness of the accomplishment: that presence of mind to focus and actually execute when you know it’s there.”

How it came to be there stems from another quirk to the story.

Because he missed much of last year with a severe hip injury and tweaked a hamstring earlier this year, Lightfoot and his brain trust observed caution in his return to competition.

In the process, though, Hartwig said Lightfoot, who competed for Baylor in college, began “jumping unheard of heights” in practice. Watching the videos, Hartwig saw a window of opportunity that he didn’t want to let slip away and suggested Lightfoot compete in Nashville.

While the prize money wasn’t on the scale of what Lightfoot can make on the European circuit, where he is now, he was intrigued and eager when Hartwig called about it.

“What’s going to happen down there in Nashville?” he asked.

History, as it turned out, that means he’s been surpassed only by current world-record holder Mondo Duplantis (born in Louisiana but competing for Sweden), France’s Renaud Lavillenie and Ukrainian Sergey Bubka.

Not that it’s not subject to change.

Among others who might have something to say about that are Nilsen (whose personal record is 6.05) and Sam Kendricks, who broke Hartwig’s U.S. record of 19 years and held it (6.06) until Lighfoot supplanted him last week.

“Now his bar becomes the target that everybody’s going after, right?” said Hartwig, adding that the nature of the breakthrough is such that now others will be telling themselves, “Hey, I can do this.”

That’s healthy. As is the culture of camaraderie.

It’s telling that Lightfoot and Kendricks are represented by Hartwig. And that Lightfoot, Nilsen and Kendricks are more friends than rivals and in touch nearly daily through multiple group chats, through all forms of social media and even … speaking on the phone, Lightfoot said.

Kendricks was in touch as soon as he heard the news, with Lightfoot recalling him jokingly saying, “OK, finally I can rest now.” Nilsen, with whom Lightfoot goes back years, playfully complained that now he has to jump even higher if he wants to break it back.

“They’re stoked for me,” Lightfoot said, “and I’m stoked for them whenever they get a high bar.”

But Lightfoot has got the high bar now for the nation with the strongest tradition in the men’s version of the sport with, by one measure, 47 Olympic medals — 10 more than every other nation combined.

Even as he still is processing just how it happened, he’s beginning to realize a significance KC-made in more ways than one for a young man who as a child wondered why he kept seeing logos apparently in his honor all over the area.

“I’m the highest American pole vaulter. Ever. In the world. World history,” he said, smiling. “There’s really only two other people who have jumped higher than me outdoors. Three if you count indoors.

“I mean, we’re getting up there. There’s not that many places to go.”

Then again, he just went somewhere he didn’t quite know he could.