At the age of only 17 years, Sydney Rothman of Paarl Girls\u2019 High School is ranked the number 3 u-18 pole vaulter in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sydney recently participated internationally in Europe, reaching the phenomenal height of 4,11 m at the Apeldoorn Invitational indoor athletics championships in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on home ground recently at Dal Josaphat Stadium in Paarl, at the Prestige Athletics, Sydney cleared the current record of 3,70 m and jumped a massive 4,03 m<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these massive pole-vault jumps, she is also the first schoolgirl in Africa in history to clear the 4 m height in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With this she has qualified for the 2024 Junior World Champs which takes place in Peru later this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sydney has always been a keen athlete, and four years ago while watching pole-vault athletes of Louis Nienaber practising she thought it may be fun to try her hand at this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She joined Louis\u2019 Boland Pole-vault Academy and immediately got hooked on the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year she won her events at the SA Schools and SA Seniors athletics champs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sydney now practises with coach JP van As at the Stellenbosch Pole-vaulting Academy. She says she practises two to three hours a day, which includes high-performance training, running and biometrix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately she is setting her sights on the Olympic games in future. To qualify for this she needs to clear a height of 4,75 m, which she is continuously working towards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, says Sydney, if all goes well she would like to think that she will be able to participate in two or three Olympics in the pole-vaulting event in future, hopefully winning a podium position or perhaps even breaking world records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the age of only 17 years, Sydney Rothman of Paarl Girls\u2019 High School is ranked the number 3 u-18 pole vaulter in the 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