Matthew Callinan Keenan chasing fresh heights for Irish pole-vaulting

National Indoor Athletics Championships: Saturday (11am-4.40pm), Sunday (11am-3pm), Sport Ireland Arena, Abbotstown (live stream via Athletics Ireland YouTube)

Some people will tell you the pole vault is just sprinting with a long pole. Others will tell you it’s not an inherently risky exercise, except perhaps when that long pole not uncommonly snaps in your hands while attempting to vault above the height of the standard double-decker bus.

Matthew Callinan Keenan is telling me the pole vault is all of this and more. He knows; still only 22, he’s looking to win a third Irish senior indoor title at the Sport Ireland arena this weekend, to sit with the senior title won outdoors last June.

He’s also part of that new generation of Irish athletes making progress in our less traditional athletics events, with a passion for it too.

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The legendary Ukrainian pole-vaulter Sergei Bubka called the event a “professor’s sport”, because “one must not just run and jump, but one must think”, and Keenan talks about it with that air of intelligence.

“It’s one of the events people are naturally drawn to,” he says, “when they see us flinging ourselves over the bar, and the more competition there is the more we push ourselves too. Attention brings performance, and performance brings more attention, and we’re seeing a lot of that in Irish athletics right now.”

No Irishman has even made the Olympic stage in the pole vault. There have been some height-breakers over the years – namely the late writer and historian Ulick O’Connor, then Liam Hennessy, who broke five national records before setting a best of 4.70m.

Today, the Irish outdoor record belongs to Brian McGovern, who took it from 5.06m to 5.36m in one day in Arizona in 2013.

Indoors, the highest Irish mark of 5.31m belongs to Sean Roth, set in 2021, the pole vault unique in that World Athletics doesn’t distinguish between world records set indoors or out.

Keenan is not yet at those heights, although he’s steadily progressing.

Like most athletes in the event, he started out by accident rather than design, his mother first observing the pole vault and reckoning her son had the proper build for it. He was 13-years-old, and just over four years later landed a first senior indoor title, joint winner in 2018.

Fortunately for him, his club, St Laurence O’Toole in Carlow had an indoor training facility suitable for the pole vault, and coaching duo of Mick and Donnach Hyland to show him the way. He’s now based at Dublin City University, in his final year of a Data Science degree, and coached by Seamus Flynn.

Last year Keenan cleared 4.80m indoors, 4.78m outdoors, the five-metre mark now the obvious target.

“Yes it is, but it’s very easy to get caught up in the numbers. If I keep my results, the way it’s going, I’m very confident I can get over that, start really progressing.”

Keenan doesn’t have to look far for inspiration. Arguably the biggest name in global athletics these days is Armand Duplantis – better known as Mondo – who at age 23 and representing Sweden has already broken six world records, taking it to 6.21m last July, with World, European and Olympic titles to boot.

Born and raised in the US, coached by his Finnish father Greg (also a pole-vaulter), his mother Helena, from Sweden, a former heptathlete and volleyball player, Mondo started in the event as a three-year old.

“It’s clear with Mondo he’s that kind of generational talent, not just in the pole vault,” says Keenan.

“It’s hard to judge yourself, based off other people’s performances, because people develop at different speeds, but he’s definitely an inspiration to me, just seeing how high the guy can go.

“Of course his speed is a big factor, but he’s been pole vaulting since he was three, he’s put in way more than his 10,000 hours, with great coaches and great facilities, and he’s really driven too, he’s never satisfied with records. As soon as he gets over 6.20, he wants the next level again.

“For me, I have been developing my speed this year, but I think my best asset is the take-off, just that phase, as soon as you leave the ground, and store all your energy from the run into the pole. I feel do that really efficiently, that’s my favourite bit.”

Keenan trains eight times in a week; two sprint sessions, three pole-specific sessions, two gym sessions, plus one gymnastics session.

In the absence of more familiar names this weekend – Ciara Mageean and Sarah Healy sitting out the rest of indoors, Rhasidat Adeleke still US-collegiate bound – he will tell you the pole vault is one event to watch.