Slovenia's track & field veteran athlete wins silver at World Indoor Athletics Championships

Slovenia's track and field veteran athlete Tina Šutej won silver in the women's pole vault at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland.

This is her eighth medal at major athletics competitions, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

Gold went to Molly Caudery of Great Britain, the 2024 world indoor champion, who managed to clear 4.85m at the event in Torun, Poland, on 22 March.

Nine athletes cleared 4.35m, 4.55m, and 4.70m, but as the bar moved to 4.80m only the 26-year-old Briton and the 37-year-old Slovenian managed to get over it, both on their first attempts.

With the bar moving to 4.85m, both failed their first attempts, although Šutej was quite close. Šutej then also failed on her second try, while Caudery cleared it. Šutej was also unsuccessful on her third attempt, and had to settle for silver.

Bronze was shared by Switzerland's Angelica Moser, Czechia's Amalie Svabikova and New Zealand's Imogen Ayris.

"I came here with the goal of winning my first gold medal. I felt good and performed well. Unfortunately, I fell just short again, but I did win a medal - the eighth of my career," Šutej said after repeating the feat she achieved at last year's indoor worlds in China's Nanjing.

This time she was two centimetres below her personal indoor best, which is also the national record.

She had planned to clear all the heights on her first attempts, which she did up to the final round, when she was no longer relaxed enough.

"I wanted to break the national record or even clear 4.90m. Since there were still a lot of jumpers at the 4.70m and 4.80m heights, I had to wait a long time for my turn at 4.85m. After such a long wait, my body stiffens up. My legs lose a bit of flexibility."

Winning her seventh silver medal, Šutej felt some "inner frustration for failing to do just a little bit more".

"I'm 37 years old and I won silver at the world championships. I'm jumping at heights that most girls don't, and I'm super happy," she added.

Šutej won bronze at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September last year in her career best, having already had a bronze and a silver medal at the world indoor championships.

A former junior world silver medallist, she won her first major medal in Torun, at the 2021 European Indoor Championships, when she also claimed silver. That competition was held against strict Covid rules with testing, masks and without a live audience.

Photo: Athletics Federation of Slovenia on Facebook