AUSTIN (KXAN) — American pole vaulter Sam Kendricks shook off a bloody hand and bad memories of a previous Olympics to claim silver Tuesday at Stade de France in Paris.
Kendricks cleared 5.95 meters (19 feet, 6 1/4 inches) on his first attempt at the height, edging Greece's Emmanouil Karalis who cleared 5.90 meters for bronze. Kendricks cut his hand on his first attempt of the finals, easily clearing 5.50 meters.
Nobody, however, was going to beat Sweden's Armand Duplantis. The Louisiana native competes for Sweden through his mother Helena's lineage and broke his own world record for the ninth time clearing 6.25 meters to win gold.
That's fine by Kendricks. He's a very competitive guy but always tries to keep things in perspective.
"I don't come to an Olympics to win. I come to represent," he told Nexstar's Jala Washington. "Once you get here, you try to really epitomize the Olympic spirit. Leaving with a medal means I was the guy, and I want to be the guy time and time again, but it may not be me in the winner's seat."
Kendricks won bronze in the 2016 Rio Games and qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Games but tested positive for COVID-19 so he couldn't compete. He does his best to leave that in the past and trying not to think about the what-ifs. He thought it was a false positive because he didn't feel sick, but in the end, he couldn't compete. That made this medal all the more special for him.
"I have a policy — try not to be the victim," he said. "In Tokyo, everyone wanted to look away from me. I wasn't sick. I was ready to compete. But I want to look away from that. I don't want to look back toward it, but you can't forget. You can never go back to that situation, It's bad for athletics. But Paris felt lovely."
