Eliza McCartney farewells the crowd at the Paris Games. Photo: Simon Stacpoole / www.photosport.nz
Eight years on from her Olympic debut, Eliza McCartney re-entered the Games arena much the same way she left it - joyous, exuberant, awestruck.
Introduced to another packed house at Stade de France ahead of night seven of the track and field programme on Wednesday night, McCartney waved enthusiastically, a wide-eyed smile on her face, and skipped across the track to the pole vault pit.
While she waited her turn to vault in a rather bloated women's final, which extended the running time of the event by more than an hour, she bopped around in the background, looking relaxed and free.
And when it was time for her to take flight, McCartney took her position on the runway, stared at the bar towering above her, and smiled.
There were tears after the event, in which she finished sixth equal after bowing out following three failed attempts at 4.80m - the height she cleared in Rio to seal her bronze medal - but McCartney explained, they were "happy tears".
"It took a lot to get to this point," an emotional McCartney told media after an extraordinary women's final, won by Australia's Nina Kennedy.
"It's so special to get these opportunities ... the fact I get to go out there and do my thing, express myself, pole vault, which I love to do. How lucky am I? I just love it all."
Eliza McCartney in action during the final. Photo: photosport
You would never have sensed from her excitable energy that this is a sport that has caused McCartney so much torment.
A run of chronic achilles and lower leg injuries saw McCartney, who catapulted to stardom as a teen at the Rio Olympic in 2016, miss the delayed Tokyo Games.
She later described that feeling of being sidelined for the last Olympics as "absolute emptiness".
"It is hard when you plan your whole life around it. It is your job, it's what you do for a living and your livelihood. It's almost like losing who you think you are when moments like that happen. It can be a bit traumatic in a way," she told RNZ after being named in the New Zealand athletics team for Paris.
But McCartney didn't just miss the Tokyo Olympics. During a four-year hiatus from international competition she sat out two world championships, one indoor world championship, four Diamond League finals and the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Pinnacle event after pinnacle event passed her by. And yet, she persisted.
Eliza McCartney grins after being selected for the New Zealand athletics team for the Paris Games. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
She found a new "team", linking up with biomechanist Matt Dallow and his wife, former NBA performance therapist Chelsea Lane, and set about the painstaking work of breaking down the deeply ingrained movement patterns that were exacerbating her injuries, re-learning the devilishly technical discipline from scratch.
"I literally had to learn to walk again," McCartney said of that period.
More recently, following the departure of former national coach Jeremy McColl, who copped a 10-year ban from the sport for serious misconduct, McCartney and fellow Kiwi pole vaulters Olivia McTaggart and Imogen Ayris have come under the tutelage of British coach Scott Simpson.
McCartney said that in Simpson, she has found a coach who understands how to manage her "high maintenance needs".
Even with the significant adjustments to her programme, there were no guarantees McCartney was going to be in any fit state to vault at the Paris Olympics.
‘Mānawatia te wā nei, tirohia te tawhiti o tōu haerenga’
— The New Zealand Team (@TheNZTeam) August 8, 2024
Take this moment in, look how far you’ve come pic.twitter.com/kNZZoO4xz6
The 27-year-old said some "good decisions" made over the last two months ensured she managed to get to the Games, but it meant her preparation was underdone.
"It was a really tough preparation, nothing like my indoor season which went really smoothly and beautifully," she said.
"So to be able to get in a final and come sixth equal, I will absolutely take that.
"It's been a little rough lately, and I think it showed. I did not have the preparation I wanted. My attempts at 4.80 were just not quite it, I think it showed I didn't have the right run-in, but I do really believe I gave everything I could today."
McCartney does not know whether she will be back here again amid the electrifying atmosphere of the track and field finals at an Olympics Games.
She hopes to still be competing in her sport - a captivating mix of power, agility, technical precision and grace - in four years time at the Los Angeles Olympics, but she remains an event-by-event prospect.
"I want to be going to LA in four years time but I don't know if it's going to happen. Why wouldn't I just enjoy this moment, because it's happening right now and I get to be out there."
Whenever McCartney does eventually decide that her body and mind have had enough, it will be occasions like Wednesday night that will stick with her. The night, in the red-hot atmosphere of an Olympic final, she found freedom. Soaring high, without a care in the world for where she might land.
