Marschall flying high after clearing 5.80m

South Australian pole vaulter Kurtis Marschall has found himself in a purple patch of form and on Saturday night in Perth, jumped to a new PB of 5.80m raising his bar for the second time in as many weeks.

Marschall chose to stay in the west to make the most of the reliably idyllic conditions, and also tap into the knowledge of local pole vault guru, Alex Parnov.

The 20-year-old from Happy Valley opened his competition at 5.40m, clearing the mark on his first attempt. At 5.50m, Marshall secured the win at the Western Australian Athletics Championships, with visiting German Tobias Scherbarth unable to soar any higher.

“I never go into the competition anticipating that I’ll be the only one,” said Marschall. “I know the guys are training just as hard as me and kind of expecting them to all come out fighting and probably jump a PB. Declan’s [Carruthers] definitely got 5.50 – 5.60 in him. Angus [Armstrong] jumped 5.50 the other week, so he would be attempting 5.60 pretty soon. So, having those guys in at 5.60 is usually what I’m anticipating but it just wasn’t the case on the weekend. I pretty much just have to go through the motions and back it up just like a training jump – I only have five minutes between each jump.

“I just have to control what I can control, do what I can to get over the bar.”

Marschall cleared 5.78m at last weekend’s Jandakot Airport Track Classic at the same venue for an improvement of five centimetres on his previous best. The mark also secured his start for March’s IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.

This week, there would be no exploration between 5.70m and 5.80m, Marschall and his coach Kim Symons deciding to bite the bullet.

“I’ve been there for a while, so we decided to just go for 80,” he explained. “We didn’t want to mess around and go 81 then 82 or any of that crap, just go to 80 and it ended up being on the right pole at the right time on the first attempt so I’m very happy.”

Marschall went for broke following the 5.80m, raising the bar another five centimetres and staying with the same pole. While his second attempt was better than the first, Marschall had to be content with the 5.80m bringing the competition to an end.

“I wasn’t really ready after jumping a PB again to then back up a few minutes later,” he said. “My head wasn’t quite in it.

“After such a high it’s quite hard to come back down and re-centre.”

Marschall attempted 5.83m the previous week before bowing out, chasing the mark set by young gun, European junior champion and world championship finalist Armand Duplantis just 24 hours earlier indoors in Reno. That performance was later ruled to be invalid due to some incorrectly sized crossbar pegs but this week, Marschall was mindful of the 5.86m cleared by Renaud Lavillenie late last week.

“I’ve pretty much just got to compare myself to what the guys are jumping indoors," he said. “I’m aiming to get as close as I can to the top dogs now and whatever they’re jumping.”   

The next competition for Marschall will be at the South Australian Athletics Championships, February 2-4 before targeting the Australian Athletics Championships and Nomination Trial a fortnight later on the Gold Coast.