Ahrens breaks seventeen year old pole-vault record

On March 5 at Paramount High School, a track and field athlete broke a record that was nearly as old as she is. Junior and varsity pole vaulter Jacqueline Ahrens reached new heights in her event, beating the previous record of 12’2 by one inch at the annual Paramount Relays, taking first overall in the event and claim of the record. Since the meet was the first major competition of the year, Ahrens hoped, but did not expect to improve as much as she did; instead, the original record set by Leora Ward at the California State Meet in 1999, was a goal for her senior year.

“We always believed that she would break [the record], because in practice she would go way higher than her [personal record], but we finally saw it happen in competition,” sophomore and teammate Ken Kuboshima said.

Though she had competed unattached in preseason meets during January and February, Ahrens had been unable to beat her personal best of 11 feet.

“I think it has been more of a mental block, because I have just been bailing out halfway and not completing [my attempts],” Ahrens said. “The meet did not start out well, so once I knew that I had nothing to lose, I just tried my hardest.”

Even now, rather than setting a new goal, Ahrens plans to focus on improving and remaining consistent at her current height. But with three months left in the track season, she has time to improve and do well in postseason competition.

“[Ahrens] puts a lot of time into [training], more than anybody else, [even though] she is really busy with academics,” Kuboshima said.“Overall, she is really good at time management and the amount of effort she put into [training] was incredible.”