Katerina Stefanidi

Personal life Katerina Stefanidi was born to athletes Georgios Stefanidis and Zoi Vareli, who competed internationally in the triple jump and sprints, respectively. Her younger sister, Georgia, is also a pole vaulter. In 2015, she married Mitchell Krier, her future coach and also a former pole vaulter. She lives in the United States.

Career Junior level: 2005–2010 Stefanidi attended the 1st High School of Pallini where she won the National High School Championships. She broke the national high school pole vault record and the championship record, winning gold at the 2006 Gymnasiade. Growing up she broke all of the world age-group records for the ages of 11–14 and right after she turned 15, she broke the world under-18 best with a jump of 4.37 m. Her first international experience came at the age of 15, when she represented Greece at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Marrakesh, winning the gold medal and setting a championship record of 4.30 m in the process. At the 2007 edition held in Ostrava, she was second with 4.25 m. In 2008, the 18-year-old won the bronze medal with 4.25 m at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The same year, she gained an athletic scholarship at Stanford University and began competing for the Stanford Cardinal track and field team. She received her master's degree in cognitive psychology with Dr. Gene A. Brewer at Arizona State University while training under the guidance of 2000 Olympic pole vault champion Nick Hysong.

At Stanford, Stefanidi broke the freshman school record with a leap of 4.13 m, under the guidance of coach Kris Mack and head coach Edrick Floreal. In 2010, under the guidance of Toby Stevenson, she tied for fifth place (4.30 m) at the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, was the Pac-10 Conference champion and tied for fourth (4.25 m) at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, after breaking the school record multiple times.

2011–2013 In 2011, she was second at the NCAA Indoors with 4.40 m. That same year she defended her Pac-10 Conference title (4.28 m) and was third at the NCAA Outdoors with 4.40 m. She placed second at the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava, Czechia and third at Universiade in Shenzhen, China, after jumping a personal best of 4.45 m in both competitions to tie the Greek U23 record.

Her senior year, Stefanidi placed third at the NCAA Indoors (4.35 m). In the 2012 outdoor season, she was again the Pac-12 Conference champion in Eugene, Oregon, where she broke her own school record with 4.48 m. A month later she became the NCAA champion in Des Moines, Iowa, clearing 4.45 m. Her season's best, 4.51 m, achieved in July in Livermore, California, is the Greek under-23 record.

In 2013, she faced some injury problems, thus not improving her personal best, with a 4.45 m season's best.

2014–2015

In the 2014 indoor season, she improved her personal best to 4.55 m. In the 2014 outdoor season, she improved her lifetime best to 4.57 m and then established even better best of 4.60 m at the Diamond League meeting in New York City. She competed for the first time at the European Athletics Team Championships 1st league, held in Tallinn, representing Greece and winning with a 4.55 m jump. She managed to improve her PB again at the Glasgow Diamond League in with a jump at 4.65 m. One week before the European Championships she set another personal best at 4.71 m, equaling the Greek national record.

At the 2014 European Championships held in Zurich, Switzerland she had an easy qualification, while in the final she had her first success in major events by winning the silver medal with 4.60 m, losing the gold medal in the very last jump of the event to Anzhelika Sidorova. She later won the Birmingham Diamond League meeting with 4.57 m and took the third place at the circuit's final held in Zürich with 4.67 m. With these results, she took the second place overall at the Diamond League series, only behind Fabiana Murer. During 2014, she jumped 10 times above 4.55 m, while her pre-2014 PB was 4.51 m.

During the 2015 indoor season, she set a personal best four times (4.56 m, 4.60 m, 4.61 m and 4.77 m, which was temporarily the national record). At the 2015 European Indoor Championships, she won the silver medal with 4.75 m.

In the 2016 indoor season, she set a national record with a huge leap of 4.90 m at the Millrose Games, which ranked her at fourth place of all time in the event, tied with Demi Payne who cleared the same height at the same meeting. At the World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon, Stefanidi won the bronze medal with a jump of 4.80 m. In the following months she continuously improved her personal outdoor record (4.73, 4.75 and 4.77 m), and in Filothei, she set a Greek record of 4.86 m. In July at the Amsterdam European Championships, she won the gold medal with 4.81 m, taking the competition record from Yelena Isinbayeva.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Stefanidi became Olympic champion with a jump of 4.85 m, becoming the seventh Greek female athlete to win a gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games. In September, she won her first Diamond League Trophy.

2017–2018 During the 2017 indoor season, she became the European Indoor champion with a world-leading jump of 4.85 m. In the 2017 summer season, she set a world lead at the Rome Diamond League with 4.85 m and attempted for the first time to set a new world record. Two years after a disappointing performance at the 2015 Beijing World Championship, where she missed the final, Stefanidi won the gold medal at the World Championships held in London, where she even broke her own Greek record and set a new world lead for 2017 by vaulting 4.91 m. Katerina completed her 2017 outdoor season undefeated (14 wins in a row) and winning the Diamond League final in Brussels. On 14 October that year, at the traditional European Athletics gala in Vilnius, Lithuania, she was named European Women's Athlete of the Year. She was training at SPIRE Institute and Academy to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. At the Games, she took the fourth place, equaling her season's best with a jump of 4.80 m.

In 2022 Stefanidi won the silver medal at the European Championships in Munich, behind Wilma Murto, with a season's best (4.75m). In 2024 she won another silver medal at the European Championships in Rome (4.73m), behind Angelica Moser. At the 2024 Olympic Games' final in Paris she took the 9th place (4.70m).

2026–present After a period away from competition and following the birth of her son (2025), Stefanidi returned in February 2026. In June 2026 she won the Balkan Athletics Championships in Volos, Greece.

Achievements

International competitions

Circuit wins and titles

2014 (1): Birmingham British Grand Prix 2016 (4): Rabat Meeting International , Rome Golden Gala (=), Monaco Herculis, London Anniversary Games 2017 (6): Doha Diamond League , Rome , London, Birmingham, Zürich Weltklasse , Brussels Memorial Van Damme 2018 (2): Lausanne Athletissima , Zürich 2019 (3): Shanghai Diamond League , Birmingham, Brussels

Progression