Marschall to make his return at Sydney Track Classic

For most leading Australian athletes, a year without competition was an excruciating exercise of patience. But for Kurts Marschall, the wait through 2020 was made even tougher after missing the 2019 international season due to injuries.

But now, after months of competing at local meets in his home state of Western Australia, Australia’s leading male pole vaulter is finally getting the opportunity to be in his element once again, when he competes at tonight’s Sydney Track Classic.

“I am so eager to get back into some high level competitions,” he said.

“For me it has been a long road back from injuries and I am finally finding myself in some good shape.”

“Good shape” is one way to describe his form. Marschall has performed a number of Olympic qualifying vaults of 5.80m this year, but it’s his journey back from injury that is pushing him to raise his two-year-old outdoor PB of 5.81m.

The problems started in late 2018 when his pole plant went wrong at the Brussels Diamond League, resulting in him landing on the base of the uprights. He fractured his heel bones on both legs and was carried from the field by competitors Piotr Lisek and Sam Kendricks.

Keen to return to his sport, Marschall rushed back into competition and admits, “I was playing catch-up ahead of the (2019) European indoor season and I rushed things, trying to do too much.”

Over three weeks in Perth and in Europe he cleared his current PBs of 5.81m outdoors and 5.87m indoors.

“Coming back from that injury, too soon led to a niggling pain in my shoulder, which turned out to be a tear in the tendon of my rotator cuff,” he wrote in an IAAF Spikes article.

“I was using parts of my back too much, loading it with acute pressure, and that caused me to get a stress fracture in the L5 disc of my spine.”

A few months later, in June 2019, his season was over.  

After a period of rehabilitation seven months later he returned and in his first competition of 2020, he cleared t5.80m at the Jandakot Airport Track Classic. 

“But a week later the back pain returned. Then Covid-19 happened, and all of a sudden there was no rush to get ready for anything,” recalled Marschall.

“For me, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise.”

Initially he took a holiday to the Gold Coast and during that time nurtured his back, his shoulder, his feet.

“The break really consolidated my body back together.”

In 2020 he also moved coaches to six metre vaulter and Athletics Australia’s Event Group Lead for Pole Vault, Paul Burgess.

“With the new additions to my support team including James Fitzpatrick as assistant pole vault coach and Ben Ray-Smith as my new Physio we have managed to get my body and mind back in the game and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the Australian domestic season provided everything goes smoothly,” he said.

“I’ve only done one competition off my full run so far this year at the WA State Champs a couple weeks ago where I jumped 5.80m and hopefully that is only the beginning.”

The Sydney Track Classic will provide an opportunity to compete outside his familiar surrounds of Perth.

“I will be using the Sydney Track Classic as my next competition which will be great to finally have some competition on the road which I haven’t done in a long time. It will be good to get my routine back together and remember all the small things that come with traveling for a competition.”

He is also longing forward to jumping high.

“I have a couple of extra brand new poles which I will be bringing so hopefully they can kick me over some big heights. I feel like I am in PB shape and if Sydney can provide some good conditions then we should be in for a treat. Very much looking forward to getting out there with my training partner Angus (Armstrong) and the rest of the field putting on a show.”

He is also focused on the big dance in 2021.

“There is still a lot of work to do before I am ready for Tokyo, but I’m well on my way.”

The Sydney Track Classic will also be an opportunity to experience why he does the sport.

“Looking forward to immersing myself in a large scale competition again and just enjoying myself. This is why I do the sport for the fun of it and travel as my old coach Kym Simons used to say.”

Interestingly one of his main opposition in Sydney will be a rising star from South Australia, Jack Downey who is coached by Marschall’s first coach Kym Simons. The teenager who has 10.80 100m speed, has improved from 5.13m to 5.45m this summer.

The challengers of the last few years have highlighted for Marschall the bigger picture outside of his track career.

“From the past few years I have come to learn that there is more to life than just sport and when things start heading south you need to have a back-up plan. For me it wasn’t necessarily a back-up plan for after pole vault but it was one to keep me busy and stimulated while pole vault was on the back burner. I found that in the form of university and golf.

“I’ve become a bit of a golf fanatic over the last year. Ever since Craig Hilliard, Brandon Starc, Matt Denny and I have been chatting about since the start of Covid, they’ve got me hooked,” he said.

“Matt and I were talking about maybe having a hit out in Brisbane after the Track Classic later in March. But we will see. My only worry is how Matt will feel when he gets out driven off the tee by a skinny pole vaulter.”

By David Tarbotton
Posted: 13/3/2021