Mary Saxer

Mary Saxer (born June 21, 1987) is an American track and field athlete who competes in the pole vault. She holds a personal record of for the event, set in 2014.

Saxer excelled in her youth, breaking the North, Central American and Caribbean junior record for the event with in 2005 as a high school student. She did not improve on this mark while competing collegiately for the University of Notre Dame, although she did win three Big East Conference titles and was third at the 2009 NCAA Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championship. She finally bettered her mark at the 2010 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, where she was third in her first national podium finish.

She was the 2012 national runner-up indoors and represented her country at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships. Saxer won the 2014 USA Indoor title and made her second international appearance at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Biography

Early life and college Born in Buffalo, New York to Ann and Don Saxer, she grew up in Lancaster, New York and attended Lancaster High School. Saxer was involved in gymnastics from a young age but gave up the sport around the age of twelve. She remained interested in sports, however, and became interested in track and field athletics, first sprint and then long jumping. She was a four-time state schools champion in the long jump. However, it was in the pole vault that she truly excelled in her youth. Rick Suhr, a New York-based vaulting coach, spotted Saxer at a long jump training camp in summer 2003 and encouraged her to try out the new event.

Working with Suhr and her high school coach, Kevin Carriero, Saxer swiftly established herself among the best young vaulters in the world. (Women's pole vault was still in an early stage as it only became an Olympic event in 2000.) In her first year of competition in 2004 she placed runner-up at the indoor high schools championships with a clearance of . The following year she cleared four metres for the first time and won at the National Scholastic Indoor Championships. A height of at the Nike Indoor Nationals brought her a continental junior record (under-20) and made her the first American high school athlete to clear fourteen feet. She was named 2005 National High School Indoor Athlete of the Year and also managed to gain two letters for the high school field hockey team at the same time. Her high school success came at the same time as her coach, Carriero, was undergoing treatment for cancer – a condition that went into remission in Saxer's last year for the school team.

Saxer gained an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Notre Dame in 2005 and chose to study marketing in the Mendoza College of Business. By February the following year she had already broken the school record with a vault of . She was runner-up at the Big East Conference indoor championship and also managed ninth in the long jump. Outdoors she won at the Mt. SAC Relays and placed fourth in the Big East pole vault. She had similar placings in the vault and long jump at the 2008 Big East Indoors, coming ninth and tenth in the events, including a long jump lifetime best indoors of . She won at the Mt. SAC Relays for a second time and claimed her first conference title at the Big East outdoor championship, where she was also in the top ten in long jump. Her best mark that year in the vault was . At that competition she cleared the opening height of but got no further. Saxer missed the opportunity to compete at the 2012 London Olympics when she finished fourth on count-back at the 2012 United States Olympic Trials behind Lacy Janson. At the 2014 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships missed at and 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships missed at . Saxer cleared at 2016 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships to place 5th. Saxer made the final clearing in 2016 United States Olympic Trials (track and field), but nh in the final.

Personal records

Pole vault – (2013) Long jump – (2004) Indoors Pole vault – (2014) Long jump – (2008)

Competition record National titles USA Indoor Track and Field Championships: 2014