Team SG pole vaulter Rachel Yang reflects on a stellar career before one last hurrah at the 19th Asian Games

Rachel Yang is Singapore’s national record holder in women’s pole vault, a notoriously difficult track and field event where athletes use a long pole to propel themselves over a bar.

Over her long sporting career, she has suffered more than 10 injuries, and has had three surgeries in the knee and one in the back.

This month, 16 years after her first international competition in the 2007 Asian Athletics Championships where she won a silver medal, the 41-year-old is preparing for the final competition of her career – the 19th Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China.

Reflecting on her unusual journey, Yang confessed that she never even liked pole vaulting – at least not at first. She told CNA Women that it was love that led her to take this less beaten path. 

LOVE ON THE FIELD

Don’t know much about pole vaulting? Indeed, it is not a popular sport because it is difficult and resource intensive, requiring expensive poles and other equipment.

In fact, although Yang herself always loved sports and represented her school in track and field, badminton and volleyball, pole vaulting never crossed her mind.

“I am afraid of heights. So honestly, I didn’t like (pole vaulting) because I found it scary. I’m not trained in gymnastics, so any time I’m in the air and not on the ground, I’m not comfortable.” she confessed. 

Then in 2006, she started dating her then-boyfriend David Yeo, a pole vault coach. Yang’s first experience with the pole was at the age of 23 at a junior college where Yeo was coaching.

“It was off-season, so nobody was training – (the team) went to play street soccer instead. Because I’d seen them do drills before, I did it by myself unsupervised.

“I just held the pole and did a little jump. Unfortunately, I landed in a hole, my knee twisted and I heard a pop sound,” she said.

Yang found out she had torn her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and had to have surgery. However, after rehabilitation, she went back to pole vault training with her boyfriend nine months later.

“His training hours were long and this was the only opportunity I had to spend more time with him,” she laughed.

But Yang’s competitive nature soon took over. Setting her sights on representing Singapore in pole vaulting, she began to train rigorously.

Although Yang had a speech therapy degree from Australia, she decided to forgo a full-time job to be a private tutor so that she could focus on training. After a year, she competed in the Asian Athletics Championships in 2007 and won the silver medal.

What most people don’t know is that she won despite a heel contusion, an injury to the soft tissue in and around the heel, which she got during training.

“I couldn’t walk. But I didn’t let anybody know and just managed the pain. Because of my injury, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to jump.

“But during the competition, the adrenaline set in and I managed to jump and set a national record at 3.5m. It was one of the most memorable competitions in my whole career,” she said. Yang’s current national record is 3.91m, set in 2017 at the Thailand Open Track and Field Championships.

RISING FROM INJURY AND FAILURE

That year was a good one for Yang, who also won the bronze medal at the Asian Indoor Games in Macau, China. However, her sporting career was marked by many obstacles over the next few years.

In 2009, just before her first SEA Games in Laos, a back injury caused her to drop out of the competition. Subsequently, when she competed in the 2011 SEA Games in Indonesia, she failed to clear the starting height of 3.6m.

This was such a big blow to Yang that she took a two-year break from pole vaulting. In 2012, she married her coach Yeo, and together, they welcomed a baby boy in 2013.

Just two weeks after giving birth, she resumed pole training. Once more, it was love that drove her to conquer her fears. “I dreamed of bringing my son to the podium to receive a medal,” she said.

This was a time of many changes for Yang. Shortly after giving birth, she left her full-time job at the Singapore Sports Council (now known as Sport Singapore) and joined Special Olympics Singapore as its general manager. She also began studying for a Master of Business Administration with Murdoch University at Kaplan, splitting her time between work, night classes, parenting and training.

Two years later, she was ready to compete again. In March 2015, she took part in the Malaysian Open and broke Singapore’s national record, clearing a height of 3.83m. Two months later, in May, she broke that record again with a height of 3.85m at the Taiwan Open.

A month later, in June 2015, she won a silver medal in the SEA Games in Singapore.

“I had mixed feelings because of my failures at the SEA Games before. But this was the first time I saw a home crowd and banners, and heard my name shouted. That gave me a lot of energy and motivation,” she said.

For the third time that year, she broke the national record, clearing a height of 3.9m, and won the silver medal. “I heard the stadium roar,” she recalled.

Yang also realised her dream of bringing her two-year-old son up to the podium with her to receive the medal.

EMBRACING THE SPIRIT OF SPORTS

After her spectacular performances in 2015, Yang’s journey was marked with many ups and downs.

In 2017, she won a bronze medal in the SEA Games in Malaysia. However, a calf injury and a back injury caused her to miss the 2019 and 2021 SEA Games. She also performed poorly in the recent 2023 SEA Games in Cambodia, in May, failing to clear her starting height of 3.5m.

“I had been posted to Montreal, Canada, for one-and-a-half months of work before the competition, and did not have time to arrange for training overseas. I only came back to Singapore three weeks before the SEA Games so I was not well prepared,” explained Yang, who is a consultant at Capgemini, a French multinational digital company.

“The conditions (in Cambodia) were very tough. I tried my best but it was unexpectedly hot – around 38 to 39 degrees Celsius, and the headwind was so strong that I couldn’t run in, get my speed or move my pole forward.

“Most of the other competitors also did not do well, and performed below their personal best,” she said. “Pole vaulters can’t always do their personal best. There are so many variables that one little change can affect your whole performance.”

Learning to cope with ‘failure’ is indeed a big part of pole vaulting, because the competition is structured such that athletes progressively attempt higher jumps until they find their personal limit, said Yang.

“Unlike other events, pole vaulters, or any vertical jumper, always end with a low. You always go higher and higher, pushing your limit until you end with a failure,” she said.

However, after 16 years, Yang has learnt to embrace this. “Every time I don’t do well, there will be a lot of critics who question why I am still competing,” she said.

“But failure is part and parcel of success.

“I used to have a fear of repeating the same mistakes of the previous games, but I have learnt to focus on the process, not the results,” said Yang.

After competing in Hangzhou, Yang will bow out of competitive pole vaulting to focus on her career. But she will continue enjoying the sport recreationally at a training club in Montreal where she is currently based for work.

“Recreational training is more social, and training is lighter and more relaxed, unlike elite training, which is tough,” she said.

Yang also noted that although she used to be the oldest in her training group when pole vaulting competitively, she is now one of the youngest at this recreational training club. Some members have continued to embrace the challenging sport in their 60s and 70s, and she is looking forward to training with them.