Team GB athlete Molly Caudery broke down in tears and apologised for her failure to bring home a medal from the 2024 Olympics following her shock elimination from the pole vault event.
Caudery, who had an hour earlier been consoling her team-mate Holly Bradshaw for failing to qualify, was left devastated by her own failure after she couldn’t clear her opening height of 4.55m in the heats.
The 24-year-old from Truro had been expected to land a gold medal for Team GB and the Truro-born athletics star gave a heartfelt apology live on TV after failing to qualify.
“It’s totally heartbreaking, not the Olympic experience I was hoping for. I’m just so sorry to everyone back at home,” Caudery told BBC Sport.
“I wish I could’ve done better for everyone and myself of course. But I’m going to try and learn from this. It’s still an Olympic experience and I’ll take everything I can from it.”
Asked what went wrong in her pole vault routine, she replied: “It’s honestly what I’ve been asking myself. I felt great, I’m in the best shape of myself and I had an amazing warm-up.
“I didn’t feel too nervous – I love a big crowd. For some reason, that I don’t know right now, it wasn’t my day. I’ll go and talk to my coach and hopefully figure some things out. I’ll just use this as an experience, learn from it and try and move on.”
Caudery was highly-fancied to add Team GB’s 11th gold medal at the Games after claiming the world indoor title in June, setting a British record at 4.92m.
She also claimed a bronze medal at the European Championships in June and finishedfifth at last year’s World Championships. But things didn’t work out for the Cornwall native, while her Team GB colleague Bradshaw, 32, was also eliminated.
Former British 400m runner Katharine Merry described Caudery’s exit from the Olympics as the “biggest shock” of the track and field events so far.
“Molly Caudery has gone over a height of 4.92m [this season] – 4cm higher than anyone else in the world,” Merry said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“She decided to come in at an opening height of 4.55m. In her pool nobody else entered at that height, everyone else came in at an earlier height.”
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