Alysha Newman is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in the pole vault. She is the reigning Commonwealth Games champion in the women’s pole vault following the 2018 Games in the Gold Coast, where she set a new Games record of 4.75 meters (15.6 ft).
Alysha Newman was born on June 29, 1994, in London, Ontario, Canada. Her first sport was gymnastics, which she was forced to abandon at the age of 13 after injuring a lower back vertebra. After one year off sports where she considered ice hockey and diving, she chose track and field and was directed by a coach to vaulting due to her gymnastics background.
In 2013, Alysha Newman joined Eastern Michigan University, soon becoming Mid-American Conference champion and competing in the NCAA tournament.
Alysha Newman competed in the pole vault event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, winning the bronze medal. The 4.60 m (15 ft 1 in) vault ranked Newman as fourth in the world in women’s pole vault at that time.
In July 2016 Alysha Newman was officially named to Canada’s Olympic team. Competing in the Olympics, she only vaulted 4.45 m (14 ft 7 in) in qualification and missed the finals.
Alysha Newman improved her own national record again at the Hurricane Alumni Invitational at the University of Miami on April 8, 2017, where Newman vaulted 4.71 m (15 ft 5+1⁄4 in) in Coral Gables, Florida. In August, she was a finalist in the 2017 World Championships in Athletics, finishing seventh by vaulting 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in).
In March 2018, Alysha Newman placed sixth at the 2018 World Indoor Championships with a height of 4.70 m. In April, she competed at her second Commonwealth Games pole vault in the Gold Coast, winning the gold medal with a height of 4.75 m (15 ft 7 in), equaling her personal best and set a Commonwealth Games record.
In May 2018, while traveling to compete at the Qatar Athletic Super Grand Prix in Doha, Alysha Newman’s poles were all destroyed whilst in transit with Air Canada. She competed at the event with poles borrowed from a local athletics club, placing seventh.
In February 2019, Alysha Newman won the 2019 Indoor Meeting iKarlsruhe with a clearance of 4.71 m (15 ft 5 in), setting the Canadian indoor track and field pole vault record. In July 2019, Alysha Newman won at the Stabhochsprung Jockgrim meet with a new personal best of 4.77 m (15 ft 8 in).
Alysha Newman was named to the Canadian team for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which the COVID-19 pandemic caused to be delayed to 2021. She suffered a concussion in early 2021 and did not participate in the 2021 Diamond League after failing to clear a bar at a tune-up event in Sweden. Upon arrival in Tokyo for the pole vault event, Newman failed to take off on all three of her attempts in the qualification round and thus did not move on to the main phase of the competition.
Alysha Newman hot photos
