Sam Kendricks wins pole vault silver despite spikes puncturing hand

SAINT-DENIS, France — Pole vaulters, American Sam Kendricks likes to say, use every single part of their body and uniform to excel in their event. 

So when Kendricks was “really committing” to jumping 6.0 meters — a height he tried to clear three times — and his spikes punctured his hand, he didn’t worry. He wiped it on his arm and carried on, all the way to securing a silver medal. 

“I’ve got very sharp spikes,” said Kendricks, who took second in the men’s pole vault Monday night at Stade de France in the 2024 Paris Olympics after he cleared 5.95 meters. “As I was really committing to first jump at six meters (19 feet, 6 1/4 inches), I punctured my hand three times and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. And rather than wipe it on my nice uniform, I had to wipe it on my arm.

“I tried not to get any blood on Old Glory for no good purposes.” 

So, bloodied and bruised but not broken, Kendricks is going home with a silver medal, to add his Olympic collection. He also has a bronze, which he won in Rio in 2016. 

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Why not any medal representation from Tokyo? He’d be happy to tell you. 

In 2021, Kendricks was in Japan for the delayed Olympic Games when he tested positive for COVID-19. He was devastated — and furious. He remains convinced that it was a false positive because he did not feel sick. Nonetheless he was forced to quarantine. He’s talked about how he was “definitely bitter” about what happened then and struggled to let it go. At the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in June, he threatened to not come to Paris. 

“Rather than run away from it, like I really wanted to, you gotta come back, you gotta face that lion,” Kendricks said. 

Asked if another Olympic medal has erased the heartbreak of 2021, Kendricks said, “I don’t want to talk about Tokyo anymore.” 

He’d rather gush about the show he got to watch in Paris.  

After he’d secured the gold Monday evening, Swedish sensation Armand Duplantis, a Louisiana native known simply as “Mondo,” decided he was going to go for some records. First he cleared 6.10 to set an Olympic record. 

Then, with more than 77,000 breathless people zeroed in on him — every other event had wrapped up by 10 p.m., which meant pole vault got all the attention — Duplantis cleared 6.25, a world record. It set off an eruption in Stade de France, led by Kendricks, who went streaking across the track to celebrate with his friend.

“Pole vault breeds brotherhood,” Kendricks said of the celebration with Duplantis, the 24-year-old whiz kid who now has two gold medals.

The event went more than three hours, with vaulters passing time chatting with each other between jumps.

“Probably a lot of it is just nonsense,”  Duplantis joked of the topics discussed. “If it’s Sam it’s probably different nonsense. I’ll say this, we chatted a lot less than we usually do. You can definitely sense when it’s the Olympics — people start to tense up a little bit.” 

Asked if he’s also bitter at coming along around the same time as Duplantis, Kendricks just smiled. He has two of his own world titles, he reminded everyone, winning gold at the World Championships in both 2017 and 2019.

“I’ve had my time with the golden handcuffs,” Kendricks said. “Mondo earned his time.” 

Email Lindsay Schnell at lschnell@usatoday.com and follow her on social media @Lindsay_Schnell 

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