Meet Molly Caudrey, Britain’s pole-vaulting medal hope with a side hustle as a model

Molly Caudrey is one of Great Britain's best chances at a track and field medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with the pole valuator coming off an excellent third-place finish at a recent Diamond League meeting in London. Caudrey's tale is fascinating, with the Briton overcoming serious injuries to compete at the highest level, while working as a model on the side.

Caudrey, 23, is set to compete for Great Britain at the upcoming Paris Olympics where she hopes to take home a medal in the pole vault. But how did she overcome a large injury to become one of the form jumpers in athletics?

Caudrey was born in Truro, Cornwall on the 17th of March, 2000. She started competing from a young age with the Cornwall Athletics Club, where she was coached by her father.

Caudrey was named to the England team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. Aged just 17, she was the youngest competitor in the English team, for the BBC.

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A fifth-placed finish for Caudrey repaid the faith placed in her by the English side and showed the promise that now has her among the favors for Olympic gold.

Four years on, Caudrey once was again selected to compete at the Commonwealth Games, this time finishing second in Birmingham.

Speaking to the BBC after her silver-medal-winning performance, Caudrey said, “It feels like a dream, last night I had the most vivid dream that I came third and then I woke up and thought no, it was a dream - now “I'm here and I came second.”

Just eight months out from the games in Birmingham, Caudrey had nearly lost her finger in a freak weight-training accident that nearly cost her career.

Caudrey told The Sun, “I was doing snatching and, as I brought the bar down, my finger caught between where you rack it and the bar.” Causing her finger to be “90% off”.

Cuadrey continued, explaining that it took three surgeries to correct the damage to her finger, but she will sport a scar for the rest of her life.

A further two surgeries were required to fix Achilles injuries, that, “put me out for almost nine months,” from The Sun.

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Since Caudrey's injury battles, she has continued on an upward trajectory setting personal best after personal best. This included a fifth-place finish at the World Championships with a jump of 4.75m.

At an athletics meet in France this year, Caudrey set a new personal best of 4.86m, per the BBC. This jump would have been enough to secure a silver medal at the 2020 Olympics, just 4cm short of gold.

Caudrey told The Sun, “If I can just get to the final in Paris then you never know what is going to happen. Every athlete has their timeline and mine was always 2028.”

Away from pole vaulting, Caudrey has racked up an impressive 206k followers on Instagram. attracting sponsorship deals from the likes of Adidas and others.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Caudrey had to dispel rumors of a “side hustle” as a model, telling the publication, “Just to clarify, no, I am not actually a model.” However, per SunSport, Caudrey recently signed to W model management and sportswear giants Adidas, so perhaps she will now be calling herself a model!

With the Paris Olympics mere months away, be sure to keep an eye on Caudrey's progress as she builds up to what could well be a gold medal!

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