Leap Of Faith
When Jennifer Stuczynski arrives in Eugene, Ore., for the start of this week’s U. S. Olympic trials, it will be hard to imagine that less than a year ago she could not perform a simple pole vault.
Stuczynski –a 6-feet 1-inch, two-time national record holder in the sport –could not pick up a pole or even sprint down a runway without feeling the agonizing pain of an injured Achilles tendon in the fall of 2007. It had seemed like the Fredonia native was on top of the world. In May 2007, she broke Stacy Dragila’s U. S. outdoor vaulting record by a half inch, reaching 15-foot-10 at the adidas Track Classic. Dragila was an Olympic standout in 2000.
Stuczynski was not finished raising the bar. She beat her own American record a little over a month later at the Reebok Grand Prix in Los Angeles, becoming only the second woman in the world to hit the 16-foot mark. Russian Yelena Isinbayeva had set the world record at 16-0ø, which she has since raised to 16-5oe.
Then came a jolt. Stuczynski developed Achilles tendinitis in which the only remedy was rest, an almost impossible suggestion when battling for the top spot in the world. Her coach, Rick Suhr, said her problems were bound to emerge when training vigorously and not listening to her body.
Aside from the physical strain, Stuczynski had to cloak her emotions and competitive drive in order to properly recover.
“You know, you have the physical part of it where it hurts and you can’t compete, and then you have the mental part where you have to shut down,” Stuczynski said of dealing with an injury.
“From there, we went to some doctors and they said it could take up to three months. They were right, and in the meantime, it was hard to stay focused when you just don’t know how long it’s going to be before you can jump again. I think what pulled us through was just hoping and enjoying things outside of pole vaulting. You have to have a life outside.”
Canine therapy
Stuczynski didn’t need to get a life. Instead, she got a dog.
She bought a Great Pyrenees, a breed she had wanted since her undergraduate days at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester.
“I saw [the dog] when I was in college,” she said. “I asked the lady what it was, and ever since then, I’ve wanted one. I researched it and finally found one in Buffalo.”
She and Suhr agree that caring for the dog was one of the best therapies for her.
“The day she bought a dog really helped,” Suhr said. “It put her concentration somewhere else, and I really think it’s helped her to this day.”
Stuczynski also continued her weight training, taking on just about any training except for an actual jump.
After a three-month injury hiatus, Stuczynski bounced back. She won the U. S. Indoor Nationals in February, sending her to Valencia, Spain, for the IAAF Indoor World Championships, where she won a silver medal, again finishing one step behind Isinbayeva. When the adidas Track Classic came back around this May, Stuczynski vaulted 16-0b, to once more break her U. S. record. She failed in an attempt to set a world record at 16-5z.
Nobody who knows Stuczynski is surprised that her dogged determination got her back to the top of her sport, where she will compete in the qualifying round July 3; the finals will be held July 6. If she finishes as expected in the top three, Stuczynski will be on her way to Beijing in August for the 2008 Olympics.
A star is born
After dabbling in golf when she was young, she moved onto basketball and track at Fredonia High. At Roberts Wesleyan, an NAIA school in Rochester, Stuczynski was playing pickup basketball in 2004 when she caught the attention of Suhr. He took an immediate interest in training her.
“She was playing [basketball] against men and holding her own,” said Suhr, the premier pole vaulting coach in Western New York. “Very aggressive, very disciplined and I thought it was interesting that a girl could do that well directly against men in competition like that.
“The next thing that impressed me is how fast she could run. She got the first three steps out and that was it.”
Stuczynski’s first jump was more of a spectacle than a miracle, more likely to show up on YouTube than an ESPN highlight reel. But Stuczynski became obsessed with the sport.
“She could just really completely concentrate on certain technical changes and make them quickly,” Suhr said. “She just wants to perfect things. Bottom line, she has incredible inner strength and drive.”
In 2005, only a year after she picked up the sport, Stuczynski won an NAIA indoor national title, followed by a win at the USA Indoor Championships where she cleared 14 feet, 3b inche 1/3 .
Stuczynksi had far surpassed expectations, including Suhr’s. He figured she would not reach competitive heights until at least 2012 because it usually takes eight years for an to develop world class skills in a sport.
Suhr took out a second mortgage on his house to fund Stuczynski’s training. It was a huge wager that paid off tenfold. Stuczynski’s earnings now sit comfortably within six-figures.
“When I think back to it, it was pretty crazy to do what I did,” Suhr said. “Sometimes I think in this world all you need to reach a dream is your self-belief, and one other person to buy in. Just one other person that you can talk to and say, ‘Hey, this is something we can do together.’ I really put a game on getting some money to buy time to have her develop, and it paid off. I don’t think too many guys would have taken that bet to begin with.”
Her against the bar
In addition to the permanent mark she made on women’s pole vaulting, Stuczynski recently signed deals with Nutrilite supplements and adidas athletics. Suhr says that Stuczynski remains one of the most humble people he has ever known.
“The funny part is that [Jenn] doesn’t think she’s all that good of a pole vaulter,“ he said. “You’d never know by talking to her. You’d think she’s No. 2 in the county, not No. 2 in the world.”
Now comes her chance to take on the world, including her rival Isinbayeva.
“I can end right now, and say that I have the American record and [have] broken it a couple of times,” she said, “but I think to be successful, you have to be the top in the world, so that’s our next step.
“One person asked me, ‘What do you compete against, the people or the bar?’ I said, you have to compete against the bar, because once you’ve beat all the people, what’s left? . . . Our biggest focus is just keeping everything in check and going through workouts and not getting emotional about things and feeling the pressure.”
Suhr said Stuczynski can stay on top if she stays healthy.
“She has all the ingredients that you need to sustain a good career over a period of time, there’s no question about it,” Suhr said. “I think staying healthy and being uninjured is probably the biggest factor in staying in the top five, but you know, I do see her doing it. . . . To know that you had a big part of influence in American track and field in the pole vault is just incredible. People are always going to remember that you made your mark.”
