Featured Vaulter: Steve Lewis

Name: Steve Lewis

Height:191cm

Weight: 83kg

Vault personal best: 575m

Hometown/current place you live: Staffordshire/Loughborough, UK

Age:23

What’s a quality or trait that makes you a great vaulter?  I think it is my passion for the event that makes me keep training hard and focused.

You’ve become a stand-out vaulter on an international stage at much younger age than most- how has this affected you? It has been great to learn from all the more experienced vaulters that i have watched through my development years.  I think it has also helped me to move forward faster and given me loads of motivation being around the worlds best.  So i suppose it has affected me in a really positive way.

How’d you get started vaulting? At my local track i started to try all the events and eventually found a coach who had a group of pole vaulters my age, we started to pole-vault for points for my local athletics team and it has all moved forward from there.

Did you do any other sports?  If so, do you think they’ve helped your vaulting and how?  I have done pretty much every sport through school but swimming and gymnastics were the two i was attending after school classes for.  I definitely think they have helped my pole vaulting, especially the gymnastics as it gave me good spacial awareness and a love for adrenalin rushes!

You’ve travelled quite a bit- where’s the coolest place you’ve visited?  Australia, i love the beaches and the climate. 

What’s a talent you have unrelated to pole vaulting?  Juggling and talking way too much rubbish!

If you had to choose, Would you prefer:

Have the power of flight OR the ability to stop time?  Flight....... everytime

Always travel on a little pink scooter OR a tractor?  Tractor, its probably gonna be my next purchase.

Lose your sense of taste OR your sense of smell?  Smell, i love food too much to not taste it

Compulsively bark like a dog once every minute OR have to sing your national anthem whenever you are near more than 5 people?  Bark as my singing is definaltely not good enough to sing the national anthem!

Have an extra toe OR a missing finger?  Extra toe but i have no idea why, i suppose i need my fingers!

If you want to be a featured athlete of the week, answer the questions above, attach a picture or video, and send it all to us in an email to awhittaker@gillathletics.com. Unfortunately due to NFHS and NCAA rules, current high school and collegiate vaulters cannot be featured. Post-collegiate vaulters, and any vaulter not currently governed by NCAA or NFHS rules are welcome and encouraged to apply. Gill Athletics accepts no responsibility for rules violations.