2003 Articles

Q1: You broke the American record at the Reggie Lewis Center on February 1. Does the facility suit your jumping style?

STACY DRAGILA: "Boston is a great facility. It mimics a lot of the European indoor facilities with a small, intimate setting. The crowd is right on top of you. It's fast " it's a very hard surface. If you're ready to set the jump up, the track is there for great heights and fast marks. I got to stay in Boston for a week after the Boston Indoor Games, before Millrose. Practicing there helped prepare me again and again for what will go on at the Indoor Championships. I love to get the crowd involved, and for the get the crowd behind me and clap me down the runway."

Q2: When you hear about Svetlana Feofanova (of Russia, the current world indoor record holder) doing well, does that motivate you?

STACY DRAGILA: "It does spur me on, but I don't get on the Internet and find where she's jumping next. It distracts from what I'm trying to focus on in my practices. On the track, I stick with my game plan. If I watch her clearing bars on first heights on first attempts, looking awesome, it's going to play with my mind. I didn't even know she was jumping on Friday. But if I'm jumping at the world record, you need to make sure you are jumping the world record [and make sure Feofanova hasn't raised it earlier in the day]. "It's great for our sport that there is someone that is pushing the mark up. I feel that I'm up there on the verge of adding another centimeter or 10 centimeters. It's motivating to go to practice and focus on what I need to do."

Q3: Are you looking forward to competing against Feofanova at the World Indoor Championships, March 14-16 in Birmingham?

STACY DRAGILA: "Sometimes we simulate what might happen at World Indoors: is it going to come down to me and her? But then I say let's just work on getting to the World Championships and making opening height. If I start focusing on her it will rattle me. If she challenges me, it's going to trigger me to be that much more competitive. I think it would be much like the [2001] World Outdoor Championships in Edmonton. I didn't think she was going to be jumping the heights she was. It was an awesome head-to-head competition, and a long day. I know she's going to want to hold onto her world record and have an indoor title to her name. I want the world record, and I haven't had an indoor championship to my name in a long time [since 1997]."

Q4: The way the world record has been going, is there a limit to how high a woman can pole vault? Do you think about that?

STACY DRAGILA: "I haven't thought about that at all this year. We have a biomechanic who works with us. As fast as I'm running now, I could potentially jump 17 feet. So why aren't I doing it? It's technique and strength. If we can somehow make our jumps even better here and there, 17 feet is not out of the question. I hope to be one of those people to be pushing it to the 17-foot barrier."

Q5: In training, what are you jumping?

STACY DRAGILA: "I have been over my outdoor world record (4.81/15-9.25)."

Q6: Do you analyze with video?

STACY DRAGILA: "We were doing that a lot early in the season, but we've backed away from it. We' ve also looked at my competitive jumps. I like to look at it. Recently, Dave [Nielsen, her coach] and I have been having closed practices. He has a hard time running the camera and seeing what I'm dong on the runway. I feel like I know what I need to do, it's a matter of trusting it. Stepping out, getting my hands where they need to be. It's a matter of getting out of my comfort zone and getting to a new level in my training."

Q7: Are you the same athlete now as you were in Sydney [2000 Olympics] and Edmonton [2001 World Outdoor Championships?

STACY DRAGILA: "I think I've improved since Edmonton and Sydney. I think going against Svetlana is going to give me confidence this year. Last year it was hard to be competing, knowing I wasn't in good condition. I couldn't fight back, and fighting back is my trademark. I got sick, and then my foot was bothering me. I never felt like I should have been out there competing. I never felt like I was totally confident out there. Two years prior to that, I was as confident. In a way, it was good to be injured last year. I needed some down time. Now as I came back this fall, I felt great. I got to do a whole fall season of great conditioning, great confidence-building. I'm a better athlete. I'm more physically fit now than I was last year and the year before. As I've gotten older, I've gotten wiser about my training. I just feel good. It's too bad that she's [Feofanova] not willing to come over here to compete against me for one me, and I'm not willing to go over there and sacrifice a week of training just to jump once (prior to the World Indoor Championships)."

Q8: Is it hard not to get ahead of yourself and start thinking about 2004?

STACY DRAGILA: "I think it was harder going into 2000. I had to hold the excitement back. I couldn't believe where I had come from, where I was and where I was going. Now I'm more confident in who I am and what I've established. I'm taking each season on its own - stay healthy, establish the world record, bring the best out in myself and my competitors. I haven't gotten totally excited about 2004 yet. I have too much to work on in the next year."

Q9: Tell us about your multi-event training.

STACY DRAGILA: "I couldn't imagine being a pole vaulter every day and only doing pole vault every day. But I came from a heptathlon background, and if I didn't do it now, I'd feel I was losing something, losing strength. I think the long jump hurdles and sprint workouts I do help me in the pole vault. When I see our younger girls [at Idaho State, where Dragila is an assistant coach] do hurdles and long jump work, their vaulting takes off. At first they are a little apprehensive when they come in as recruits. It's not for everybody, but I come from that background. It's me, and I'm going to stick with what's been good for me."

Q10: What about the decathlon?

STACY DRAGILA: "I think it would be fun to do a decathlon, just to establish it in the U.S. I think a lot of women don't want to do it because they don't pole vault, and they're not crazy about 1,500 meters at the end of two days. I think it just comes down to guts, though. "I did a decathlon after World Indoors in 1997, actually, at Occidental. I hadn't done any discus preparation, but I had this other stuff in my background. I thought 'what the heck.' It felt like I'd climbed a mountain I'd never climbed before. It felt good - well, the 1,500 didn't feel good. But it was something other women in the United States hadn't done before. It really made me feel good. The pole vault opened up at 9 feet. The younger guys knew I just came back from the World Championships, and they were terrified."