Kelli Ehardt wants to fly even higher

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Ramsey: Former Rampart vaulter wants to fly even higher

Ehardt to compete in Rocky Mountain State Games on Saturday
July 29, 2010 9:32 AM
DAVID RAMSEY
THE GAZETTE
When Kelli Ehardt needs a personal lift, she sometimes returns to May 18, 2007.

She was a junior pole vaulter at Rampart High School, a novice, really, but you never would have known it.

At the state track meet in Lakewood, she first broke the meet record of 12-6 held by Katie Colvin of Lewis-Palmer.

But Ehardt wasn’t done. She wanted 13 feet.

And, amazingly, she got it.

On her third and final vault, Ehardt brushed the bar with her leg. The bar wobbled, but held as Ehardt celebrated on her return to earth.

She was Colorado’s first female high school vaulter to clear 13 feet. An announcement was made over the loudspeaker, and soon everyone was clapping for Ehardt.

“It was a cool experience,” Ehardt said this week. “It was a really cool experience.”

But this experience also left a burden.

It’s proving tough to top.

Ehardt will compete Saturday in pole vault competition at the Rocky Mountain State Games.

She’s headed into her junior year at Brigham Young, where she’s among the nation’s top female vaulters. She won the Mountain West title as a freshman, and she’s performed consistently for the Cougars.

But the vaulter who traveled from 8 feet as a sophomore to 13 feet as a junior, the competitor who won meets by two or three feet in high school, is finding college competition isn’t as easy as high school.

“Going from eight feet to 13 feet,” Ehardt said. “That never happens. It gets progressively harder the higher you get.”

She vaulted 13-8 this season, at the time the 12th best collegiate vault in the nation, but she wants more.

She wants 14 feet.

She’s cleared the height in practice. She knows she can do it.

“Been over 14 several times,” she said. “In practice.”

Her goal is to clear 4.30 meters. Vaulters don’t talk about feet. They talk about meters, but Ehardt is happy to translate the number.

It’s 14-11/4.

She’s preparing to conquer the height with the help of her mind. Ehardt is student of her sport. Her vaulting hero is Sergei Bubka, history’s greatest vaulter. He set the world record vault of 20-13/4 feet in 1994. Amazingly, he still holds the record.

Bubka was a gifted athlete, but he might have been a better strategist.

“I love the pole vault," Bubka once said, “because it is the professor’s sport. One must not only jump but one must think.”

Ehardt is seeking to follow Bubka’s example. She must use her mind to excel because she’s not blessed with a classic pole vaulter’s build.

Most vaulters are tall, and Ehardt is relatively short at 5-foot-4. Like former Air Force javelin star Dana Pounds, Ehardt must make up for her lack of height with extra doses of determination and wisdom.

“I’m short,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I’m definitely shorter, and little stockier than most vaulters. If I were taller. I would have jumped higher.”

Ed Halik helped train Ehardt when she was at Rampart, and he has kept a close eye on her career.

He’s confident about her future.

“She’s a strong, powerful girl,” Halik said. “And she’s a very gutsy kid. That’s part of being a pole vaulter; you have to be crazy. Let me rephrase that. You have to be fearless.”

Ehardt is also focused, The first female in Colorado prep history to break 13 feet has her eyes set on 14 feet.

Don’t bet against her.



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