Kiwi pole vaulter Eliza McCartney has won gold at the Commonwealth Games, while Imogen Ayris took the bronze. <\/p>\n
This is the first time McCartney has taken home a gold on the world stage, saying previously she had only ever won silvers and bronzes at international tournaments.<\/p>\n
“This is the first time I’ve won something!” she explained.<\/p>\n
McCartney’s gold was confirmed after Australia’s Nina Kennedy failed her third attempt at 4.70 metres. <\/p>\n
Kennedy needed two attempts to clear the previous height of 4.65m, while McCartney required just one. <\/p>\n
Unable to clear the 4.70m on her second attempt, Ayris secured the bronze for New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Reflecting on the competition, McCartney told 1News the win was unexpected and is yet to sink in.<\/p>\n
“I can’t quite register that,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what to say, it was a really weird comp. It was hard work. It was cold, it was dark, it was windy.”<\/p>\n
Plagued by injuries, McCartney felt grateful she was able to perform, saying she never takes any jump for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy achilles are manageable today, but in two months maybe they won\u2019t be. I don\u2019t know. So, I\u2019m so present, this jump right now may be my last.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hoping I will look back at those jumps and think \u2018I did my best and it paid off.'”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kiwi pole vaulter Eliza McCartney has won gold at the Commonwealth Games, while Imogen Ayris took the bronze.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16671,166477,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-553720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-athletics","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}