Alysha Newman

“My heart rate was slow. I was calm,” recalls Alysha Newman, Caledon’s Olympic pole-vaulting medallist. “When my pole hit the back of the box it felt fluid, it flowed. From that moment, I knew I would make that jump.” At 4.85 metres, it wasn’t just a medal performance. It was the highest the 30-year-old Caledon East resident had ever vaulted – a height so lofty that it set a Canadian record and fewer than 10 women in the world are known to have exceeded it. 

For anyone watching Alysha at home or live in Paris with her trademark royal red lipstick that matches her uniform, that vault was a goosebump-raising 15 seconds of unforgettable athletic prowess.

Winning an Olympic medal (Alysha actually tied with the silver medallist, but took bronze because she required an additional jump at a lower height) wasn’t easy for this injury-prone athlete, but it was seldom in doubt for Alysha and her family. From the earliest age, she demonstrated an unusual commitment to practising, extraordinary body awareness and natural athleticism. Alysha says, “I wasn’t a good student because I couldn’t sit still.” Her parents introduced her to several activities before she landed on gymnastics. “I never wanted to leave the gym,” Alysha recalls. “I would hide when my parents came to pick me up.” At 13, however, when she was on the brink of moving into the ranks of elite gymnasts, Alysha fractured a vertebra that ended that dream. 

It took a year before she “found” track and field. And took even longer for her coach at the time to recognize that to keep Alysha’s attention, her star athlete needed to focus on several events at the same time (hurdles, 200 m and high jump). It was her coach’s husband who suggested the pole vault. At first Alysha said no, “I want to keep my feet on the ground.” But once she tried it, she was hooked. “I never got bored,” she said, “because pole vaulting involves so many things: running, long jump, fitness…” At her first competition she jumped an impressive 3.15 m.

Despite taking home gold at her second Commonwealth Games in 2018 in the Gold Coast with a height of 4.75 m, her second Olympic outing in 2020 (she also competed in 2016) bore disappointing results, arguably due to a concussion. Undeterred, she told her mother, “If I have to go to eight Olympics to win a medal, I will.” She did it in three.

With her win, Alysha’s world has changed. An Olympic medal is a reward for her determination, hard work and everything she gave up along the way. More importantly, it’s a gateway to new challenges. How do I stay on top? she wonders. How do I continue to improve? How high can I jump? Her next major test is the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. 

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She also wants to mentor others. And if she and her coaches, Doug Wood and Zdenek Krykorka, succeed, she’ll be filling that role in Caledon. (Alysha lives in a Caledon East home she bought in 2020.) Their dream is to create a world-class track and field facility. It would build on the unique pole-vaulting centre Wood established in an empty industrial warehouse in Bolton – a facility that turned Caledon’s largest town into pole-vault central for Alysha and others.

Alysha speaks fondly of Caledon. “It gives me space to breathe. It’s green,” she says, adding, “I do best when I have a place to call home.” It’s also where she hooked up with her best training mate – ever. Aussie is her two-and-a-half-year-old Pomeranian-husky cross. “Aussie follows me down the runway, then jumps onto the mat and gives me kisses after I’ve landed,” Alysha says. “And she never judges me. It doesn’t matter whether or not I’ve cleared the bar.”