Molly Caudery Wants To Seal Olympic Glory And Inspire Others

Molly Caudery's rise has even caught her by surprise - and she has a certificate to prove it. ‘I am now a qualified masseuse,' Britain's new pole vault star reveals to Mail Sport.

‘I started the course in December because I thought I was going to have to get a side job to support my training and that I couldn't just be an athlete. When I was looking for an apartment, I had to make sure it had a spare room because I wanted to make it into a little massage room.

‘As an athlete, there is not a huge living to be made unless you are really at the top, so I was expecting to have to pick that up. But I'm not sure I am going to have to do that now because things have gone so well this year.'



That is an understatement. So far in 2024, Caudery has won the world indoor title, broken the British record and jumped higher than any other woman on the planet. It means she goes into the Olympics as one of the gold medal favourites. And to think she started training for another job before Christmas. ‘It's been such a whirlwind year,' says the 24-year-old, who was ranked 21st in the world 12 months ago and previously thought Los Angeles 2028 would be her time to shine. ‘This has all been so unexpected.'

For Caudery, nothing has been more unexpected than how she has become a style icon, with young girls sending her pictures on social media of them sporting her signature hairstyle.




Molly Caudery (pictured) has won the world indoor title, broken the British record and jumped higher than any other woman on the planet but is now aiming to win gold in Paris






The rise has even caught her by surprise and she has also become a sensation on social media






Caudery (pictured) has become synonymous for her signature pigtails hairstyle, a hairdo she wore during her first competition this year, where she jumped a PB 

‘I wore pigtails for my first competition this year and I came out and jumped a PB,' explains Caudery, who boasts more than 280,000 Instagram followers. ‘So now I do it at every competition. It's my new lucky thing. It's not bad to have an image. Whether people want to call me "pigtail girl" or whatever, it's something to be noticed by and that's quite cool.



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‘To see young girls now wearing pigtails, to know that I am inspiring the next generation, means more than anything. I recently received a load of letters from students wishing me luck for the Olympics and they had drawn my signature pigtails and written some kind messages. It brought me to tears. If I can inspire one person, it makes it all worth it.'

Caudery's idol growing up was Jessica Ennis-Hill, who she met for the first time after her victory at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow in March. ‘I have never been starstruck before but I was starstruck by her,' she admits. ‘I couldn't believe I was actually meeting her.'

Ennis-Hill, who will be a BBC pundit in Paris, tipped Caudery to win gold at the Games. ‘I still can't believe that she even knows who I am,' she says. ‘Little 12-year-old me watching her at the Olympics just wouldn't believe that any of this is happening. It is crazy.'

It was around the time of Ennis-Hill's London 2012 glory that Caudery first tried athletics, having been a national-level gymnast at primary school, training 24 hours a week. Her switch in sports was always perhaps inevitable given her father Stuart was a decathlete, and her mother Barbara also pole vaulted. But growing up in Cornwall did not make athletics easy, as the county has just one track - in Redruth - and the nearest indoor facility is three hours away in Bath.




‘To see young girls now wearing pigtails, to know that I am inspiring the next generation, means more than anything,' said Caudery





Jessica Ennis-Hill (pictured), who was Caudery's idol growing up, has tipped the pole vault star to win gold in Paris





The 24-year-old stated that her sensational rise to the top this year had been 'a whirlwind' 

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‘I remember once training in the snow in the middle of the March before going to Australia for the Commonwealth Games,' recalls Caudery. ‘But it toughened me up and has helped me. I don't think it would be optimal now for me to jumping in the wind and the rain because sometimes you do need to work on technical stuff. But I just set the world lead and British record in the wind and the rain and I don't know if I could have done that if I hadn't grown up in Cornwall and faced those adversities.'