Holly Bleasdale believes she can back up her coach's claims that she can can be the best in the world.
Pole vaulter happy to prove coach right and become best in the world
Holly Bleasdale believes she can back up her coach's claims that she can can be the best in the world.
It puts a certain amount of pressure on an athlete when their coach predicts they can be the best in the world, but British pole vault record holder Bleasdale believes she can achieve those goals.
Bleasdale secured her place on the British team by winning the UK trials with a clearance of 4.56 metres in Birmingham, although that was well short of her record vault of 4.70m a few weeks earlier.
To most people accustomed to seeing Kate Dennison slowly increase the national record one centimetre at a time until the bar reached 4.60m, Bleasdale's achievement came completely out of the blue.
But not to her coach Julien Raffalli, the man who has taken the Lancashire teenager from a raw novice who did not even know the pole vault existed, into the top 10 in the world.
World's best
"If you ask me now if I think Holly can one day be the world number one and the best ever, I say why not?" Raffalli said. "She has only been vaulting seriously with me for two years, whereas it often takes girls many years to get to Holly's level.
"I don't want to put pressure on her though, nor do I want to put a limit on what I think she can achieve. I think she's got the potential to clear five metres."
That would put Bleasdale into the truly rarefied air occupied by only one woman in history, her idol Yelena Isinbayeva, but Raffalli has been spot on with his predictions so far.
"I remember him saying it and it was like 'Oh gosh' because it was scary," Bleasdale said. "But when I first started he said 'At the end of this year you will jump three metres, and then four metres'.
"I jumped 4.05m, and he said I would jump 4.35m and I did. So all his predictions have been right. I believe in him. When he says I will jump five metres, he knows what he is talking about.
Dream
"I think it is going to take me another four to five years to get to where I want to be. But I have a lot more to come. I started doing weights this year and I have a lot more to come there, and when I look back at my technique, it is okay but there are a lot of things we can improve.
"I think I'm naturally really quick and I'm quite strong. That means that I can take bigger poles which has made me jump higher. If I didn't have that strength and my speed I'd have to rely a lot more on my technique. Once I've corrected my technique I think I'll be able to jump a lot higher."
Raffalli is also not the only trained eye Bleasdale has managed to impress in her relatively short career, with UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee - a man notoriously hard to please - already a big fan.
"I did read in the newspaper that he liked my simple attitude, like there's only me and I don't think about anyone else," Bleasdale added. "I think that's why I do so well. I just concentrate on me.
"When you speak to Charles he always has something you need to improve on but he's really nice and he's helped me out a lot. I really like him and I think he's right in what he says. He gives you a negative and then backs it up with a positive but makes you have that negative just to keep you thinking."
