OHIO — An athlete from Ohio is getting ready to take the Olympic stage.
As a teenager, Katie Nageotte found the perfect sport for her.
“I was a gymnast when I was younger, and I loved anything upper body strength, adrenaline, flipping — I was always climbing on things I wasn’t supposed to be and every recess I was on the monkey bars,” said Nageotte.
She then found pole vaulting, where the Ashland University alumnus has reached great heights over the years, recently spending time training in Washington State with former Olympian Brad Walker.
“I don’t think he really wanted to but according to him, when I sent him videos he said he would be dumb not to take me on, so I’m just very grateful he did,” she said.
Walker and Nageotte’s investment in one another would pay off when Nageotte qualified for the Olympics. It’s a moment she’d never forget.
“I felt like for the first time in probably like 10 years, I could actually breathe. My shoulders like finally dropped. When I cleared the height that did make the team, the meet wasn’t over yet, but when I realized it was down to the final three of us, I just walked over to my coach and I started crying into his chest, and I said thank you,” she remembered.
Nageotte’s emotion came with good reason. She’s faced a number of challenges, from dealing with COVID, to just missing the previous Olympics, transferring colleges and losing her father at age 16. But she didn’t have to face these challenges alone.
“I really genuinely feel like that town helped raise me and my brother and my sister, so there’s just a love for that community that I have felt from them and I feel for them, and then just the support I’ve received from everyone over the past four years has been incredible,” said Nageotte.
Back in her hometown of Olmsted Falls, one of those who helped raise her is her former coach, David Godfrey, who remembers some of the moments that made her into an Olympian.
“Bulldog relays her junior year was on this runway. We had no lights because they were under construction,” explained Godfrey. “And hooked up five spotlights on to the plant box in the bar and in the dark, other than seeing those, we had 300 people watching the pole vault competition and they set records.”
Godfrey has watched Nageotte grow up and is excited to see her take the global stage.
“That I can still feel like a coach right now today even though I retired several years ago from coaching, and still feel like a coach which is a great feeling,” he said.
As Nageotte competes to become the best in the world, she’s doing it as a kid from Olmsted Falls, a teenager who lost of loved one, and an athlete trying to make the jump from D-2 to the Olympics. And she’s setting the example that determination can pay off.
“I can show people that if it doesn’t happen immediately, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. It took me five years out of college to get a sponsorship to jump, to make a world team,” said Nageotte. “Put your ego to the side and say, ‘I don’t know everything.’ Ask for help, but that pretty great things can happen if you just stay persistent and stay confident in yourself and believe in yourself,” she said.
An Olympian vaulting over major obstacles, already a champion to those cheering her on. Qualifying rounds for women’s pole vault begin Monday, Aug 2.
