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Culture / Sporting Life / Culture - The Woodlands

This Woodlands Elite Cheerleader Turned Pole Vaulter Is One of the Best Stories of the Paris Olympics — How Brynn King Defied the Odds to Make the US Team

Not Picking Up the Sport Until Her Junior Year of High School and Coming Out of Division II Roberts Wesleyan, King Still Makes History

BY // 07.24.24
photography Doug Bouma

A Woodlands Elite cheerleader turned Division II pole vaulter already had a trip to France with her best friend planned for this summer. But she’ll be making a stop in Paris to compete in the Summer Olympics first. Yes, Brynn King’s story is quite the remarkable tale.

“The first time I ever picked up a pole was my junior year of high school actually,” King tells PaperCity The Woodlands. “I’d already been cheering for like 13 years. That’s what I started when I was 4 years old.”

But it is pole vaulting that is taking her to the Olympics. She finished third at U.S. Olympic Trials at the University of Oregon, clearing a new personal best of 4.73 meters to make the U.S. Olympic Team. Now Brynn King is already experiencing the Olympic buzz and some seriously sweet perks.

“The uniform itself is super cool,” King says. “That’s what you see people wearing on TV. I turned to look in the mirror and was like ‘Oh my goodness, I’m in a Team USA uniform.’

“It kind of hit me at that moment that I had made team.”

To do it, King overcame some serious odds, taking a very untraditional path to making the Olympic team. You do not see many elite cheerleaders turned track and field stars.

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In high school at Concordia Lutheran in Tomball, Brynn King did run the 200 meter for the track team, but had little time for the sport. She dedicated the majority of her time to cheerleading. But King’s track coach suggested she might want to try pole vaulting.

“I would never go to (track) practice — cheering took up all my time,” King says. “But (my track coach) was like ‘She’s fast and with being a cheerleader her whole life, she probably has no fear and has some pretty good body control.”

So her mom signed her up for a pole vault camp in Bay City, Texas.

“She was the one who made she actually made me go to the camp,” King remembers. “I didn’t want to because at the time I’d been cheering for 13 years. I was already established in that world and I had zero desire to go somewhere and start all the way over from the beginning again. Especially all the way to Bay City.”

After getting to the pole vault camp, she quickly changed her mind.

“I kind of fell in love with it,” King says. “And I tried to do the two of them at the same time for a while, but unfortunately my body couldn’t handle it. I was getting injured 24-7. So I had to decide what I wanted to do.

“I saw more of a future for me in pole vault.”

But even King couldn’t imagine her Olympic future.

“The first time I ever picked up a pole was my junior year of high school actually. I’d already been cheering for like 13 years. That’s what I started when I was four years old.” — Brynn King

Brynn King’s Uncommon Path to Paris

King pole vaulted at Duke University after graduating from Concordia, but a transfer to Division II Roberts Wesleyan with its coaches Jenn and Rick Suhr took her pole vaulting to new heights. King has increased her jump heights by 18 inches in the last year.

“I actually met (the Suhrs) in high school when I was vaulting in Texas,” King says. “Since the weather is horrible up in Western New York (home to Roberts Wesleyan), (Rick Suhr) would move down to Texas for six months of the year. And they train out of Texas. My club coach in high school took me over to the same workout facility — a place where they actually make the poles.

“So our whole club went and jumped there just to kind of be able to meet them.”

The Woodlands Brynn King is a cheerleader turned pole vaulter who's made herself an Olympian. Now she's heading to Paris to compete in the Summer Games. (Photo by Doug Bouma)
The Woodlands Brynn King is a cheerleader turned pole vaulter who’s made herself an Olympian. Now she’s heading to Paris to compete in the Summer Games. (Photo by Doug Bouma)

King spent four years at Duke and earned a degree in evolutionary anthropology, but she had two years of college athletic eligibility still remaining due to an injury redshirt year and the extra COVID year every college athlete in school during 2020 received. When Brynn King hit the transfer portal, Jen Suhr reached out to her.

“It clicked immediately and her vision for the program she wanted to build perfectly aligned with the vision of the program that I was looking to be a part of,” King says.

King’s certainly made the most of the change. She won both the NCAA Division II indoor and outdoor championships in pole vault this year. She won the indoor title with a then personal best of 4.65 meters, which she later topped at the Olympic Trials.

“The past three or four weeks, once I got done with these nationals and I didn’t have school or anything anymore I went to training full time,” King tells PaperCity. “I was training like three to four times a day doing different things. We’ve been making huge strides in strength, speed and techniques.

“So it was in there over the past month, I was making big progress. So I knew a higher jump was in there and you never know if it’s gonna come out that day. I was lucky that the improvements that I have been making over the month, they were shown when I jumped at Trials.”

The pole vault finals took place on the last day of the Olympic Track and Field’s 10 day qualifying trials, creating a whirlwind situation after King punched her ticket to Paris.

“The night after I jumped I went straight into team processing because that was the last day of trials,” King notes. “So immediately after I jumped, I went through drug testing and the medal ceremony. I drove straight to the hotel to do team processing and I didn’t get done with that until about 1 am.

“I was trying on uniforms. I got fitted for my Ralph Lauren gear. Tailors were doing all that for me and I actually got to bring home the suitcase with my uniforms in it. I’ll get some of the other gear in the mail before I go to Paris.”

Brynn King will headed to Paris on this upcoming Monday, July 29 with her parents, grandparents and her best friend from Duke, her travel buddy. It will be her first ever trip to France. After the Olympics, she’ll have a chance to do some sightseeing. With priceless memories and maybe even an Olympic medal in tow.

Look for King in the pole vault prelims on August 5, with the pole vault finals set for August 7.

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