O'FALLON, Mo. — It takes a special set of skills to become a star in the pole vault. That’s why Edwardsville High School freshman Parker Owens spends many of his nights honing his skills at Pole Vault STL in O'Fallon, Missouri.
“There’s just so many tiny little variables to every jump that changes it so much. The pole, and how far you’re running from and how hard you’re swinging… There’s just so many little things that can completely change and ruin or make a vault great, Owens said. “It’s such a good group of people. Every pole vaulter wants every other pole vaulter to succeed. None of them want to put each other down. It’s amazing. It’s a great sport.”
At just 14 years old, Owens is already a pole vaulting prodigy.
In late October at a meet in Joliet, Illinois, Owens attempted and completed a vault of 16-feet, 3 inches. That height? Oh just a world record for his age.
“Actually in practice in the weeks coming up I probably jumped at 20 or 30 16-foot bars and I never made one of them. So coming into the meet it was super unexpected whenever I went to 16’3” and made it over. It was awesome," Owens said. "Honestly I’d thought through that moment probably 100 times before and I thought I was going to be so nervous, but when I got to that third attempt I wasn’t really nervous at all. It was awesome.”
What’s really fitting, is that Owens completed the feat dressed up in a Halloween costume as the greatest pole vaulter of all-time, Armand Duplantis.
“He’s my hero. Who I strive to be every day and who I come here and work every week to be like,” Owens said of Duplantis. “We tried everywhere to find one of his uniforms to buy one, but we actually had to make our own. I jumped in our own costume we made, and then he commented on one of the posts. It was really cool."
And yes, Owens has Olympic dreams of his own. With one world record under his belt, he’s well on his way.
“I think every track and field athlete has Olympic dreams. That’s where they all want to be,” he said.