46. Katerina Stefanidi

How cool is it that we had 2016 Gold Medalist Katarina Stefanidi and her husband/coach Mitch Kreir for an IN PERSON podcast?!?!  What an honor.  This episode is packed full of amazing stories and tips from Katarina’s fascinating career.  If you think that she waltzed her way to that Olympic Gold Medal, you are mistaken!  She has maneuvered so many obstacles and grinded for every bit of her success, and you get to hear all about it in the episode of the One More Jump Podcast.

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Transcript

Jake Winder: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one more jump podcast by rise pole vault. Today's episode is brought to you by magic mind. Magic mind is the new productivity shot that I have been taking and have absolutely been loving. I'm extremely busy Doing stuff with rise doing the podcast, doing PVR, doing being a dad, being all these things and caffeine was not cutting it for me anymore. It was making me too anxious and I was like having panic attacks and stuff. Magic mind is Really a great, great product. I am somewhat of a supplement connoisseur at this point in my life. Throughout my athletic career I always dabbled in different supplements that could, you know, give me an edge, and now I'm looking for an edge in my brain and Magic mind has been absolutely amazing.

Jake Winder: 0:55

Today's episode is with Katarina Stephani. She came in as a part of the Essex dealers conference that we hosted at rise. Just really quick, on the Essex dealers conference. It was so much fun it was. It was just really really cool to have people I guess selfishly like to have people that are like in my similar situation, trying to grow the pole vault through you know Services and their gym and and so on and so forth. But it was so cool to have such amazing Conversation and just like bringing up really really hard questions that have to be answered in order for the pole vault to move forward to a bright future, and we wrestled with some of those really hard questions and I just absolutely loved it. Essex did a great job there. They've got some incredible things in the works for the next few years and, yeah, I just had an absolute blast.

Jake Winder: 2:03

But we had the opportunity to sit down with Katarina Stephani, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist, and it was such a great conversation and Mitch, her coach we were able to our coach and husband and he is extraordinarily smart as well. He's like super, super shy and super chill, but, man, once he started going out, like everyone was like did you talk to Mitch? Have you talked to Mitch yet? He's so smart? But yeah, anyway, it was. It was a really really good conversation and again, I'll stop rambling in just a second just wanted to say again that the podcast does such a great job of adding context to what you always see on the internet, which is just somebody pole vaulting.

Jake Winder: 2:57

It's just like oh, look, you know they won the gold medal and that's the gold medal jump. And then the next, he swiped to the next story oh, look at this person. This is them pole vaulting. Swipe to the next story oh, look at this person it's it's them pole vaulting. And so on and so forth. Through everybody's stories and what the podcast does, is it turned, for example, turn Katarina's Olympic gold medal into something that I had no idea that it was. I had no idea the backstory behind it, and it's so cool that we're able to do this and and I'm very thankful for her for sitting down and just being open and willing to take time out of her Day, and and Mitch as well, but yeah, just very, very grateful. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with 2016 Olympic gold medalists and her husband, katarina and Mitch. Yeah, it's, it's tough, we good.

Katerina Stefanidi: 4:25

Do you guys pay for the heat and electricity, or is that part of the rent here?

Jake Winder: 4:30

We pay. Yes, that's a good question, so we pay hey and the cool thing about the podcast is we're already going.

Katerina Stefanidi: 4:42

So, yeah.

Jake Winder: 4:42

So the question was do we pay for heat and electricity? Yes, so we're Our lease agreement, which you can negotiate anything right, you know but our lease agreement was that we are going to be responsible for all utilities. And then I Believe I'd have to look at our lease. But I believe we're responsible for like maintenance of the HVAC, like select, the heater.

Katerina Stefanidi: 5:09

But if they fully break then they, they pay for that like these pipes up here.

Jake Winder: 5:14

You can see those leaked so those had to be replaced and we didn't have to pay for that. So any Tie said it the other day was word infrastructure. Yeah any infrastructure stuff toilets stuff, like that. So, but like we got to pay for like snow removal, Just for in front of your doors. Yeah, just in front of our doors. But we like people with the building, we just pool money together and pay, so it doesn't end up being that much.

Katerina Stefanidi: 5:45

Yeah.

Jake Winder: 5:45

I mean, I'll buy you guys, it would be a lot.

Katerina Stefanidi: 5:48

You'll be surprised we so. We were in Ohio for what? Seven years, since 2015. 2015 to 216 and a half years.

Mitch Krier: 5:58

We got way more snow in a we do now in the mountain more inch wise. Just it melted way it in the mountains It'll snow and then melt right away, because we have so much snow or sun in Colorado right, and in Ohio there was never sun.

Jake Winder: 6:13

Well, and then were you guys in a part of Ohio that you would get lake effect yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 6:20

Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's fun.

Jake Winder: 6:24

It's crazy. I remember I went to a meet Dennis Mitchell used to have. Akron yeah, thing out there. I drove out there one time and I jumped really well like qualified for USA is, which for me was a really big thing, and I remember driving home getting caught in a snowstorm like in that snow bell area and I was on the side of the road for 14 hours with a broken-down car.

Jake Winder: 6:49

And just like I had my hunting bibs on, like you know, like my big, you know snowsuit basically, and it was a bad situation a cop car pulled over and Was like are you all right? And I was like, well, I'm stranded on the side of the road and a really bad snowstorm. He's like, okay, see you later. And I was just there, it was really sketchy. It was really sketchy.

Katerina Stefanidi: 7:15

But and I feel like they go with left. No, down there At Akron.

Mitch Krier: 7:20

Yeah, but to come back here, he probably went back up. Yeah, that's true.

Katerina Stefanidi: 7:23

Yeah, toledo, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, it was.

Jake Winder: 7:30

It was supposed to be like a seven or eight hour drive and I'll be in like a 17 or 18 hour drive.

Katerina Stefanidi: 7:36

Crazy.

Jake Winder: 7:38

Crazy, crazy ride. But anyway, thank you guys so much for coming. Really appreciate it all the way from Colorado and we're here at the s6. I think they're calling it the dealer conference, so if people at home here noise in the background, that's what that is. I think it's Rensblum talking about how they're trying to sell poles in.

Katerina Stefanidi: 8:02

Europe.

Jake Winder: 8:02

So anyway, um, thank you guys so much for coming and I guess we could just kind of get started with like we know a lot about like Katerina and all her success, like after college and winning an Olympic gold medal and all those things, but I Personally don't know Much about how you started and I think it might be interesting to hear that come in from an international perspective.

Katerina Stefanidi: 8:29

So I, I was born in Greece, I grew up in Greece. In 2000, right after the Sydney Olympics first Olympics were women's ball vaults competed. My dad said oh, you know, I think you'll be good at this event. So we went to the Olympic Stadium in Greece and we tried my both, my parents, the track and field. So they both had a lot of connections with coaches in the Federation. So we, instead of going to a club, which is what most people would do in Europe, we went straight to like the Federation coach. Everybody in that group was, you know, 23, 24 years old or older. And then there was me and the coach, the very first day I tried out, said, oh, I think you could be good at this. So he brought in a couple of other girls. Then one girl left and boy came. He always had to have some other like kid around me just for me to have like friends of my age.

Jake Winder: 9:24

Yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 9:26

So that was about 10 and a half years old. I was in 2000, in 2001, so at 11, I actually broke the world age group record for 11 years old, but it didn't count. Because, in Greece. There was no competitions for 11 year old girls for both, so I had to compete in like a guys masters Competition. I jump 230. So I actually don't know what the 11 year old record is now. But if you had come to do my have still been it and then.

Jake Winder: 9:56

Well, what was it here?

Katerina Stefanidi: 9:57

Oh, two meters 30 to meter 30?

Jake Winder: 9:59

Wow, that's yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 10:03

Then I broke the 12 year old, which did count 13, 14 and a 15. I broke the 16 and the 17 year old, or age war record yeah, so a 15, which will be a freshman in high school. Here I jumped 437, 14, 4. Yeah, so. Yeah, but listen to this Dean PR again until my junior year of college, so six years.

Jake Winder: 10:32

Holy cow, that's actually a really, really good thing to talk about, because we deal with athletes all the time, better frustrated that they haven't PR'd like in the last month, you know. So like talk about like what that was, like, like mentally and just everything going through Having not PR'd in that amount of time.

Katerina Stefanidi: 10:56

Yeah. So I'm gonna put some like bits and pieces in there from my story also, because I think it's important. So, so a 15, I jumped 437 that summer. I win them. Um, we were calling youth world championships, I think. Now they call it the under 18. I actually think they stopped it now 20.

Jake Winder: 11:16

No, no, it was you 18.

Katerina Stefanidi: 11:18

They stopped it a few years ago. Actually, it was too expensive for world athletics, I think oh, wow.

Katerina Stefanidi: 11:23

Yeah, but I was two years younger than everyone when I wanted um and the next year I started having I mean, I gained a little weight, but not looking back at pictures and videos, not enough for like the freak out that went on at the time. We went to different dietitians, uh, diets that even right now that you know my livelihood is povolte, I don't think I could follow Uh, and ended up kind of in you know the, the edge of bulimia, I would say Maybe a little past it, I don't know Um, so I quit at 16 years old. I quit povolte, uh, would go out and like jog, and I hit around my 17th birthday. I said you know what I like, povolte as an activity. I don't need to be an urban champion, I just like povolte. So I went back into povolte, significantly overweight, I would say at that point, and uh, with a different coach. So instead of going back to the federation coach, I actually started being coached by an old teammate who had just retired and was now, you know, starting to coach.

Katerina Stefanidi: 12:32

And that summer, uh, so two summers basically. After you know my, my good year of like the under 18, where I heard Uh, I went to world youth. So under 18 championships again, and it was second. I jumped 425. I took attempts at equaling my outdoor pr? Um. So it did feel like you know I had just only practiced for six months and go to take attempts at tying my pr.

Katerina Stefanidi: 13:04

Second in the world again. So okay, that wasn't such a terrible year. Um, the next year I had a little bit of mental block qualified At the time there was like an a and a b standard for under 20s, so I qualified with a b standard like the worst.

Mitch Krier: 13:22

Right, right yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 13:24

And they kind of took me because I was who I was and I had already gotten a couple medals and I qualified for the final for under 20s. I think I was like 11th, like the very edge, and then in the final I had like a 15 centimeter season best again for 25 actually, and it up third. So I ended up getting a medal in the under 20s too in a year that I did not expect it, and then that I had four. I came to the US to start called it's a Stanford um. My freshman year was a disaster. Just wait, very, very different training than I was used to. Um, who?

Jake Winder: 14:03

are you training with there?

Katerina Stefanidi: 14:04

So my freshman coach was coach Mack. Okay, uh, who is actually coaching a lot of Multis at Chula Vista now. Um, I think he's a very, very good coach. I just think I'm a very different athlete. Um, we kind of say like more like a Porsche than like a, you know, a truck and and kind of need to train that way.

Jake Winder: 14:27

That is hilarious, that's awesome.

Katerina Stefanidi: 14:29

Yeah, um, so there were. There were some issues, my friend, but I think freshman year is hard for almost everybody. Uh, I always tell kids expect to not do great your first year in college and that year actually I started looking at different types of scholarships to quit povolte again. But I want to stay at Stanford. And that summer coach Mack left and Toby Stevenson came in as a coach and Toby was one of my favorite povolters growing up because I grew up in this like very like Russian military type of like this is the only way to be successful. And Toby was like so far away from that and I was like but look, he's successful, like you can do it a different way. So it was kind of motivating for him to like become a coach. He had just retired and that brought a little bit, you know, motivation back to me. I jumped I think I don't know 14, one Myself, a more year with Toby. I can't remember actually is it a long time ago?

Mitch Krier: 15:30

now.

Katerina Stefanidi: 15:30

Right. Yeah and then, I think, my junior year, I finally pr jumped over 440.

Jake Winder: 15:38

Wow, yeah. And so what was that feeling like? Where was it? How did it happen? I don't remember. No, I can't remember.

Katerina Stefanidi: 15:47

Oh man, yeah, I cannot. I think there was just so many times between those you know, in those six years that I did attempt. The pr Are yeah, but I don't quite remember where I finally got it. Oh my gosh.

Jake Winder: 16:02

Well, yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's very, very interesting and that's a really good point that you bring up about your freshman year of college.

Katerina Stefanidi: 16:10

Like.

Jake Winder: 16:10

I, I blew up my freshman year of college Like it was, you know blew up my weight, blew up my everything blew up my freshman year of college and it's, I think it's important for kids to understand. You know, that's a big change.

Jake Winder: 16:24

You don't realize it's happening and then all of a sudden it's like you're on your own, yep, it's a new training regimen and and yeah, it's, it's very interesting and you're making that decision based around talking to somebody for A few phone calls. So I have been following a company called magic mind for Probably a couple years now. I've tried so many different supplements and elixirs and all types of things um, to try to perform at my best, and Magic mind was just something that kind of came on my radar a couple years ago. But they recently reached out and were like hey, we like the podcast and you should try magic mind and see what you think.

Jake Winder: 17:14

I they didn't know this, but I had been dealing with a lot of Stimulant like caffeine related issues, which are common issues whenever you use caffeine, which is, you get super, super up and there's nothing like having caffeine in the morning. If it treats you well, it's the best you know. You get so much done and you feel good and your, your mood is elevated. But what I was finding is, the more I was adding to my plate, the more caffeine was starting to tear my day apart and when they reached out I was a little bit hesitant. But I've been trying it now for a while and it has really just eliminated all the negative side effects that I used to have from caffeine, such as anxiety, um, drop in energy, um Just kind of just feeling frazzled all day long with all the things that I do, and it has just given me just pinpoint focus On whatever the task is that I'm doing. Um, so magic mind is like it's a blend of different Neutropics and adaptogens and these things that I've actually tried before, but the cool thing about it is that they've blended them perfectly into some combination of these things, which has taken my caffeine intake and it has just Extended the life of it and then reduced the negative symptoms of too much caffeine. I am super pumped on this new company and I hope that we have a long relationship in the future. It has really helped me out in my personal life and I have a discount code that you guys can use to Try it out for yourselves.

Jake Winder: 19:15

Uh, so if you visit wwwmagicmindcom, backslash one jump um. You can get up to 56% off your subscription for the next 10 days if you use my code 1 jump 20. Um, definitely got to do this, especially if you have issues with caffeine not treating you well. Um, it is taking my caffeine and I used to do this, is embarrassing to say. I used to get up to like 800 milligrams of caffeine a day. Uh, building rise and doing all the things that I've done over the last three years and it started to really get nasty. And now I've went from 800 milligrams to one serving of caffeine in the morning With magic mind. So it's been a game changer for me and I hope it's a game changer for you guys. Again, that discount code is one jump 20, o-n-e-j-u-m-p. 20. Go check it out.

Katerina Stefanidi: 20:24

Oh, I had never been to the US until I moved into the dorm Staying for it together. Isn't that crazy?

Jake Winder: 20:29

Yeah, it's just like I mean you have a couple conversations with somebody and then you're like, yeah, I'm going to spend the next four years training with you.

Katerina Stefanidi: 20:36

I think we're a great fit yeah.

Jake Winder: 20:39

And it's like that. You know, even with you and Toby, I'm sure that it probably took a year or two and then it started to really start to click.

Katerina Stefanidi: 20:50

You know, I will say that with Toby it was easy, or easier anyways, because I think his type of training and what he did was much more similar to what I was used to.

Katerina Stefanidi: 21:04

So, I was used to doing sprints and my sprints were maximum up to 60 meters. After that it was not a sprint, it was a stride. We would do it just for rhythm and that's kind of what we did. And in fact with Toby we did a lot of 30 meters, just like some flying stuff. More plyos. With Coach Mac we did a lot more long distances that I had never in my life done.

Jake Winder: 21:29

Long distances have been like 200, 300, 400. Yeah, yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 21:34

I just didn't have the base for it and of course this is what you go to call it. You try to become better, but for me I think I was getting like a little injured from that. I bulk up pretty easy, so I think part of the way that I gained my freshman year was a lot of muscle. We did do a lot more like volume and lifting. I think there's times to do everything maybe, but I think with Toby we found like a slightly better balance and I just think you know, for someone like me, that I started at 10 years old and moved to the US at 18, I've trained eight years in a very specific way. I think it's really hard to go a completely different way. I think that certain type of training with like more volume could be very beneficial for somebody who grew up that way and had that base, but I couldn't sustain it.

Jake Winder: 22:25

Think about this for a second. This is something that I've been kicking around for like the last few years is because you oftentimes see that there's like this kind of stigma with like oh, whenever you go to college, like you're not ready for the college training, like you're not ready for it, Like it's we're going to kill you, Like it's just like okay, and then what happens is you end up seeing a lot of people come back and, having gained significant amount of weight and some of that, in my opinion, could be muscle If they're training really hard, they could be gaining muscle. But also there's also the idea that your body is constantly stressed. And if your body is constantly stressed, it feels like it's dying. And what is it? It's not going to release anything, it's going to hold on tight to every single little thing that it can because it feels like it's dying. You're killing it.

Jake Winder: 23:24

And then, once you the ironic thing is is, once you stop doing all that crazy training and just modest, like high intensity, low volume training, you're all of a sudden your weight just kind of regulates again back to its natural state, not this state of just constant stress. And so that's what I like this fall, like college fall training. I always gained so much weight during college fall training and I think it was because my body was just getting beat to crap out of it. You know, I don't know what do you think about that, mitch?

Jake Winder: 24:00

step up, here we go. I'm trying to pull him down.

Mitch Krier: 24:03

I don't have anything insightful here. I agree with you. I think that can be, but I also think that it's possibly at that point in the season it's good to train heavy.

Jake Winder: 24:12

Yeah.

Mitch Krier: 24:13

Like I think it's not such a bad thing to train a little heavier and then you come into peaking in season and you're a little lighter and everything's just a little easier without doing anything that makes sense, yeah. So I don't think that necessarily always it's a bad thing, but I agree it's probably just survival mode of the body and survival mode.

Jake Winder: 24:30

Yeah, and I haven't done enough research to have any science to back that up. It's just like a thought experiment that I've been going through in my head to think about, like why would it be that we see kids come back from college on college breaks and they've kind of ballooned up a little bit and it's like hey, coach, how are you doing? I'm like how's college? How's college?

Mitch Krier: 24:58

Like I got shin splints and I've gained 15 pounds and I haven't been drinking at all Exactly.

Katerina Stefanidi: 25:05

Exactly so and I'm not, but it's a hard age to, especially for girls, I think like hormonal changes.

Jake Winder: 25:12

Right.

Katerina Stefanidi: 25:12

Like I feel like I didn't eat that bad at one point in college and I was way heavier. So I think it is also like you know, this hormonal regulation that for some people happens in a year and for some people it happens in five years and then you can like be normal again.

Mitch Krier: 25:32

You've had like change of diet too, and when we go to. Greece. It's technically good food. Mediterranean diet. I gain weight every year.

Jake Winder: 25:38

Really.

Mitch Krier: 25:39

Because it's food that I'm not used to processing More olive oil than you will ever eat in your entire life. Her mom, uses, at least like this bottle of olive oil every day. It's crazy.

Katerina Stefanidi: 25:49

They have a pump on the olive oil thing in their house.

Mitch Krier: 25:52

There's two daughters, a husband and a wife and they have an olive oil container with a pump literally.

Katerina Stefanidi: 25:58

But I lose weight every time we go back. So my body knows how to process the food and he doesn't.

Jake Winder: 26:04

Maybe you're just better at burning like fat, yes, maybe you just bet your body's more adapted to burning fat, and our American bodies are adapted to burning carbs.

Mitch Krier: 26:16

And processed.

Katerina Stefanidi: 26:18

Processed carbs.

Jake Winder: 26:19

Right, yeah, I just this is actually a good experiment that you could just you could try. It wouldn't really impact you that much, but this is how I got on. That thought pattern was that I started to see a high correlation between when I first start my like when I would first start my squat program at the beginning of the year. That's when you get really sore and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sore and I would start that squat program and I would instantly gain five pounds and I would be like, what the heck I'm eating? The exact same that I was prior to this. And then, two weeks later, almost on the dot, once that soreness was gone, I was five pounds down and I would be like, okay, it seems like my body is holding onto stuff to repair itself and then releasing it once it's done.

Katerina Stefanidi: 27:16

For sure no, and to your point, I think I do. I do the exact same thing. I cycle through our training cycles the same way and I also cycle throughout the season, where I'm always a little heavier indoors and I always lose weight outdoor, and I'm not trying to lose any more weight outdoor. So it's almost like what you're saying. There's this stress in the body from you know, winter training or preseason or whatever you want to call it that slowly kind of goes away as you are peaking and the weight also goes away, right, right.

Jake Winder: 27:48

Yeah, it's an interesting thing to think about, but anyway, so now, whenever you were at Stanford, I'm just curious what did you study?

Katerina Stefanidi: 28:00

I studied human biology. It was a very multidisciplinary field, so people went to healthcare and I did neuro psychology. It was like my main focus. And then, after I graduated, I moved to Arizona. I was in a PhD program and trained with them at Nick Heisung's place and that's how I met Mitch, actually and I studied cognitive psychology there. So that was a PhD program I was in. I finished my master's in 2015 and I said no, maybe it's a good year to take a year off of school.

Mitch Krier: 28:36

But she really didn't. She wanted a PhD because she wanted to be a professor. Yeah, and she realized the bureaucracy in universities that it's more just about money, not really teaching the kids. It's about getting research grants, and research grants require you to do what you don't like to do. And it's not about teaching. It's about bringing in money. So she was deterred by that, and that's when she said I don't want the PhD anymore. I think I have the master's. Why would I do this?

Jake Winder: 29:03

I don't want to use it now. That's interesting. Yeah, so you originally wanted to be a professor at a university in psychology.

Katerina Stefanidi: 29:14

Yeah, I feel like giving a lecture is very much like performing in sport. You have to spend the time to be prepared for it. I think there is a little bit of natural talent involved in lecturing, but you also have to do the work and then you're on stage and you have to perform now. So it feels very similar to me, like sport. I think I would be very good at it. But there was this like doing my master's last PhD time we accepted all these like research studies that brought a lot of money to the university that had nothing to do with what we were studying. First, I don't think we had good enough experience to study what we were being given to study and second, we had most. I had no interest in studying what we were being asked to study, but there was a lot of money from, like, the military. So we were like, oh yeah, we'll do that.

Jake Winder: 30:08

So it was very driven by, like whatever we tell you, whoever's given us the money, that's what we study.

Katerina Stefanidi: 30:14

I mean, at the time I was with a younger professor so he would like apply for a ton of grants and we did a lot of functional MRIs. I think that was like mostly what they were going after with picking our lab, but just the topics were not so related. So then you're doing your own research for what you want to have your master's thesis or PhD thesis on, and something super random.

Jake Winder: 30:38

Right, right. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I hear a lot about all that goes on inside of the universities and it's just too much for my head to handle. What was your? So you went through college and then what, like after that junior year, so you have your personal best, your junior year, and then tell us about like kind of ending college and then pushing into like that post-collegiate career.

Katerina Stefanidi: 31:05

Yeah, so my senior year was 2011, 2012. I also went through a little mental block in the outdoor season.

Jake Winder: 31:14

What's a mental block? Because you said that a couple of times.

Katerina Stefanidi: 31:18

Different. I guess I would define differently at different ages because I've gone through different ones, but I would say it's like a run through issue. But I feel like to a different level every time, like sometimes it will be up to a certain pole, other times it will be all poles, other times it will be a certain run, so that I feel like that summer I would like not take off on anything like that spring. And then we went to pack 12s. That was the first year pack 12 actually I think it was in Eugene and I kind of came out of nowhere Not out of, I mean, I was.

Katerina Stefanidi: 31:53

I was one of the favorites based on my PR, but I hadn't been jumping grade. And it kind of came out of nowhere and PR'd. I jumped 448, which is actually, I think, now the Stanford school record, two centimeters under the Olympic standard. It was 450. Yeah, so we Toby kind of found some small competitions here and there and we chased that Olympic standard and we got it. I jumped 451. So I competed in the London Olympics and from there, I mean, I was going to Arizona. Like there was like a very clear path of this is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to study and I'm going to keep a voting on the side.

Mitch Krier: 32:32

You looked at Chicago too, though.

Katerina Stefanidi: 32:34

I did, yeah, I came in interviewed here actually, yeah. At what At University of Chicago.

Jake Winder: 32:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 32:41

Okay yeah, good psychology program.

Jake Winder: 32:42

Yeah yeah, it's a really good school. Yeah yeah, little tough side of town but it's yeah.

Katerina Stefanidi: 32:48

And I didn't. I have no idea where I would train. This was the harder part.

Jake Winder: 32:51

Oh yeah, and in Phoenix it was like really cool groove At that time in Illinois, like if this would have been here, like at that time? Yeah, it would have been okay, but at that time there was just nothing.

Katerina Stefanidi: 33:05

Yes.

Jake Winder: 33:05

Like sustained, like that was you could count on every week.

Katerina Stefanidi: 33:08

For sure. And the indoor nothing indoor yeah.

Jake Winder: 33:11

Yeah, I jumped at University of Chicago their indoor facility one time. They got like a little raised runway and my buddy like landed in the box and snapped his leg in half in that box. Yeah, so every time anybody says University of Chicago, I just think about that. It's bad, bad situation for that one. It was it actually. It was the reason why I didn't want to go to North Central.

Katerina Stefanidi: 33:35

Oh man, yeah, that's, sketchy.

Jake Winder: 33:42

So anyway, so really quick, just a little segue. I tell our guys all the time like I wish I could talk to somebody who's a run through guru. Do you guys have any suggestions for helping people that have significant run through issues?

Mitch Krier: 34:06

I mean to me, most of the time it's coming from a functional problem, not a mental problem, right? So I think, depending on the degree, I would always just move back and start back and move back, move forward, right.

Jake Winder: 34:25

And start over and start from ground one, even in 2022.

Katerina Stefanidi: 34:30

We had many years that we did that.

Mitch Krier: 34:32

Eugene. Right before Eugene, like a month before Eugene, she decided she would not plant a ball, she would not plant two steps. I could not plant it.

Katerina Stefanidi: 34:41

Not 22.

Katerina Stefanidi: 34:43

But, anyway, I feel like there's several years where in one practice I would start you know my little drills. I will go to like a four left, take some nice jumps. I will go to a six or a seven or an eight and then I would suddenly not change anything. I will suddenly stop taking off and many times we'll have to come back to the beginning and start the practice from the beginning. Many times we'll have to work through it. But I feel like those practices are the ones that make you better. Like it's easy, when it's easy to just come take some jumps. Like how do you get over that? I think this is what you're training really.

Jake Winder: 35:20

And.

Katerina Stefanidi: 35:20

I do think it's different for everyone. I think it's different every year. I've used different techniques, you know mental cues every year.

Katerina Stefanidi: 35:29

But for sure I do think that, at least for me, I don't feel like I'm scared of a pole or pole vaulting. I think whenever I do run through it's a posture change in the run, whether it is because I took a new pole or, but most of the time I didn't change anything when I started to run through, so I just would start running different and then run through. And then you run through a couple of times in a row and you're like, oh no, I'm running through. Now you try to start running.

Jake Winder: 35:57

You try to start running, even if it's like you're going up a pole and the weight is just slightly heavier you know, and then that slight, and then you start to drop that pole and it feels like it's dropping and it's too heavy. I mean it's this much heavier and you know that but while you're doing that at that high of a level, it can become very overwhelming. And then you get to this crux of the run where it's just like okay, what way am I going?

Jake Winder: 36:27

Am I going this way or am I going that way? And the problem is, like a lot of the kids we work with, they just keep choosing that run through direction and it's a very I think it's a some sort of functional thing too Like, I think, with the kids we work with probably not you, I'm not trying to like coach you or anything. What I'm saying is is the kids that we work with, sometimes their pole tips are so high, so late in the run, that visually and like their depth perception is like like their brain's like no, no, no, no, red, red, red, stop, stop, stop. Because their pole tip's so high and the box is so close.

Mitch Krier: 37:11

And it's like throwing them the wrong signals, you know.

Jake Winder: 37:15

And then the other thing too is that posture if they start falling forward, they start falling down and then it just throws up those red flags. But I think one of the most interesting podcasts I ever did was with Steve Hooker and we talked about I didn't know this, but he said he ran through for like three years straight.

Mitch Krier: 37:33

Yeah, we saw him at Chula. Vista and he wouldn't take a jump on a 14 foot pole. He ran through for three years.

Katerina Stefanidi: 37:39

Yeah, I remember towards the end. I was like what that is crazy For somebody too who like was injured when he won the Olympics and like came in at like 590 or whatever it was you know, but maybe that distraction also helped him.

Mitch Krier: 37:55

If he's already a mental person and injury is a good distraction.

Jake Winder: 37:58

I think probably he is either way on well, way off yeah. I mean, if you can do what he did in Berlin at those world championships he was on, and when that person like that is on, nobody can stop him you know, but then they kind of swing back this other way and he had a hard time, but he said the same exact thing. You just have to start over.

Mitch Krier: 38:26

Yeah, I think you have to just go back, and especially with young kids. What's the hurry?

Katerina Stefanidi: 38:30

Right.

Mitch Krier: 38:31

They're not gonna do anything in college. Anyway, If you jump 460 in college, congratulations. It doesn't matter. I'm not saying that to deter you.

Katerina Stefanidi: 38:38

Right right.

Mitch Krier: 38:40

Saying that as good or bad it's not gonna make your future. Your future is your future and we always say the people who make it professionally in pole vault are the ones who just stick with it. And you see it over and over and over. This girl jumped really high her freshman year of college and then for five years struggled and then just kept going and going and going and finally she'll just kind of climb in, walk on, and we've always seen that and people getting such a hurry.

Jake Winder: 39:05

You just, if you can outlast people, for sure, and I think, if you just slow, steady, consistent jumping all the time always works.

Mitch Krier: 39:15

I would rather you landing off the back of the pit, jumping on way too small of a pole and jumping and getting a feel of a pole than running through forever.

Jake Winder: 39:23

Absolutely I don't care. Thank you for saying that.

Mitch Krier: 39:25

Yeah, like to me, especially in high school. Like if you jump 19 feet in high school as a boy, it is not gonna make you a professional pole holder. So there's no hurry, you have time. You have years Consistent jumps.

Jake Winder: 39:40

Feel the jump, learn to feel the pole, learn to feel the rhythm of the whole event and it will come and that's what Brad said about Katie when we were on the podcast is he was just like the reason that Katie was able to do pretty well these last few years is because she's been able to just be patient and string together multiple healthy seasons and that's the other thing, too, is, if you're constantly just bashing big poles every single day, your body's eventually gonna wear out.

Jake Winder: 40:12

And especially as you get older too, your body's gonna wear out. And that's the key thing of what you said right. There is just consistency, and it's not just one month of taking good jumps or two months, it's one year two years, three years, four years a decade and once you get to a decade of taking consistent jumps without any big interruptions. If you're not professional, then you need to be done.

Katerina Stefanidi: 40:38

Yeah, you need to be done.

Jake Winder: 40:41

Yeah, but that is the absolute truth. So, what is it like winning an Olympic gold medal?

Katerina Stefanidi: 40:51

Ah, you know people ask this all the time, but I don't think there's an answer. I don't know if Katie has done one of these in her day or not. She has yeah, I just for me. So I've now competed in three Olympics, but in Rio I have also competed in London and I feel like I can tell you and I remember so much more from London, where I think I made one bar, than I can tell you from Rio because, there was like sad high stress.

Katerina Stefanidi: 41:19

You're coming in as I feel like it was me and Sandy as the favorites at that point I got sick, so I was on antibiotics for two days before the final. I was like running back and forth to the bathroom.

Mitch Krier: 41:32

She injured her hip flexor at the last time in league like three weeks before the Olympics and we went back to Ohio and she couldn't jog for two weeks.

Katerina Stefanidi: 41:41

Yes, so for.

Mitch Krier: 41:42

We didn't sprint, we didn't jog, we didn't do anything For two weeks except rehab, and just try to like and like lift and mental work. We just said okay, you've done this so many times, especially this season. We're just gonna practice it in the mind and try to get your body healthy and we're gonna go there and hopefully you can last through the prelim and into the final.

Katerina Stefanidi: 42:01

Yeah, so the month or the three and a half weeks before the Olympics, I took four jumps and all four of them were in Rio. Once we got to Rio, are you serious? Yeah, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

Jake Winder: 42:16

See, this is the part that this podcast is good, because nobody knew any of this, they just thought that it was just. Oh, katerina, she just waltzed her way in to the gold medal. And it was a great celebration.

Mitch Krier: 42:31

That was a trip.

Jake Winder: 42:32

Our bags didn't make it.

Katerina Stefanidi: 42:33

For like three days. The bowls didn't make it. Yeah, that was the most stressful part. We were on the tarmac in Chicago maybe. No, we were in Atlanta and I specifically remember I feel like we landed in A and we had to go to, like Z you know and we were running because the next flight was the next day and it was full for Rio, so I was like what's gonna happen?

Mitch Krier: 42:53

And kept us on the tarmac for like an hour and a half in the plane. Yeah, we landed in Atlanta and we just sat on the plane.

Katerina Stefanidi: 43:00

They didn't have a gate to get us out. And then we got out and we like sprinted, and then we go there and that next flight was also delayed, but they were not updating Google. And I think we met up with like Sean Barbara there and I don't know Jeff, I can't remember who was there and I said, if our poles make it with us, I will win the Olympics. And our poles didn't make it and I was like well, that's not good.

Jake Winder: 43:28

That's crazy yeah. So hold on your poles didn't make it either.

Katerina Stefanidi: 43:33

The poles made it. The poles in the bags came three days later. I think, yeah, yeah, super fun, it is so crazy.

Jake Winder: 43:41

So what like? Where are your guys heads at in the midst of all of that?

Mitch Krier: 43:47

Probably good distraction, like we talked about earlier. It's a good point I think almost every championship like a lot of the European championships we've ended up. The bus doesn't show up to the hotel, so we just take a taxi and then they park us like a mile away from where we can enter with the taxi.

Katerina Stefanidi: 44:03

So we're on the day of a this has happened several times actually.

Mitch Krier: 44:05

Yeah, three or four times they drive us to the stadium. We have to walk like a mile around the stadium on the day of a final and then she wins. But I always think these good distractions like it keeps you thinking about something else. And then you get in there and you're like okay, now I'm here to bowl vault.

Katerina Stefanidi: 44:19

Well, this actually happened this year in Budapest. Of course I didn't compete. I got injured in the first jump. But the bus didn't show up. We ordered, like a lift no, it was bolt, whatever it was called in Budapest. It couldn't go into like the area, like of the stadium, so it drove us off in like a random gas station. We climbed over some rocks, past like some train racks and like, I mean, we walked a mile probably to get into the warm up area. This has happened several times to us.

Katerina Stefanidi: 44:50

I consider good luck at this point, except for this year, of course.

Jake Winder: 44:53

but yeah, that is really, really crazy. Yeah, that was something that with my career, like I remember thinking to myself multiple times, like I remember one time I had to walk like almost a half mile with my bag, my pole bag, and I was like so defeated.

Katerina Stefanidi: 45:12

Like.

Jake Winder: 45:12

I was like there's no way I'm competing well today. There's absolutely no way I'm competing well and I didn't compete well, I did terrible and it was awful. So like there's gotta be something different that you guys do mentally.

Mitch Krier: 45:26

But look, you approached it. You said there's no way I can compete. Well, every time something like this happens, it's my job to say okay, this is gonna work out, it's gonna be nice because we're, instead of being in a bus that's crowded and stop, we're gonna be in a nice taxi and try to like. So you're a role of the situation into something you can use your job.

Jake Winder: 45:45

Okay okay, got you. Yeah, so that was just me, just by myself, walking with my pole bag.

Katerina Stefanidi: 45:50

Yeah, yeah.

Mitch Krier: 45:51

I don't even wanna go anymore.

Katerina Stefanidi: 45:52

I'm gonna go home.

Mitch Krier: 45:54

It was so hot it was in St Louis. I was like this is the worst.

Jake Winder: 46:00

So that's an interesting thing and that's a very special thing that you guys have is that you have him to be able to just be like A Cause, like in your head, like so okay so we know what he's thinking now in a situation like that. So what are you thinking in a situation like that?

Katerina Stefanidi: 46:16

Well, I mean, I will say this because I can remember the first time this happened and it was the prelim of the first European Championship I won in 2016. And it was like six in the morning and there was a bus there but there was no driver. And the driver that was there at breakfast was like go, I've worked so many hours, I'm not allowed to drive anymore. And we're like well, there's a bus at 6.30, like there needs to be a bus. So you were freaking out a little too and you had gone up to the restaurant trying to find somebody who could drive us. And there were other athletes there.

Katerina Stefanidi: 46:47

It wasn't just us. I think it was Zouk, for sure I remember I don't remember who else. So I feel like meets is like kind of a problem solver at that point. And then I feel like once this happened and it was a prelim, so it was a little like lower stress I had to jump for 44, 50, I don't remember. So it all kind of worked out. Then, every time after that that this happened, we were like, oh, we kind of know what to do now. You just have to stay calm and find a taxi and you might be the bus.

Mitch Krier: 47:18

But it's like that in the whole sport, almost Like we used to say in 2015, 16, that whoever prepared for everything to go wrong the most will win. And that's how our sport is. Whatever we want to wish it was, it's not, there's going to be terrible food.

Mitch Krier: 47:34

There's going to be terrible travel. You're going to show up after like a 12 hour flight and nobody's there to pick you up or doesn't realize. You have poles with you to pick you up and it's just fighting chaos all the time. And you just have to have it in your mind. This is not the NCAA. Nobody's taking care of you, nobody cares, right, so right Figure it out, yes, get there, get there ready to jump. No matter how bad your day was, they don't care, they expect you to jump.

Mitch Krier: 48:01

And you have to get your mindset around that and work everything you do to work with that.

Jake Winder: 48:08

So now we're starting to see the quiet guy.

Katerina Stefanidi: 48:10

No, actually we've got a lot of good stuff going on man.

Jake Winder: 48:15

This is yeah, we were just talking about it on our last podcast. You know, I've always kind of thought that a person's strength is in their lack of need. Like I don't need things to be perfect to jump well, and that makes me stronger. Like I don't need to have, like if my poles get lost, I don't need my poles, I could jump on somebody else's poles. Like those types of people who are just able to roll with the punches, like that, are just so strong and they're so hard to beat. They're so hard to beat those people because you can't really do anything. Nothing can mess them up.

Mitch Krier: 48:52

It can come back at you, though I feel like a lot of years. Especially, the Diamond League is not set up so that they care about the pole vault. They're not going to turn the pit, no matter who you are, what you are. The TV set up the day before. If the wind is bad, the wind is bad, jump in it, yeah, and that's it. So for a few years it was bad at almost every meet, and Katarina does very well in bad condition. She jumps the same. So we created this mantra in our heads like okay, no matter how bad the condition, you're going to go in there and you're going to jump the same. So we want bad wind. It's good for us, it's good.

Katerina Stefanidi: 49:26

And then in like 2019-20,.

Mitch Krier: 49:29

every competition we went to was like perfect, straight tailwind. We went to Qatar for World Champs and they had an air conditioner that blew a tailwind in an indoor stadium, so it was like the greatest setup you could ever have. Yeah, it almost worked to our downfall, because for so many years we said we do better in bad, we don't want good conditions because everybody else does bad. So then when we got good conditions we were like oh crap, the girls are going to jump really well because they all do good with raised runways or tailwinds.

Jake Winder: 49:58

Right, so then it kind of.

Mitch Krier: 50:00

You have to be careful about these ideas you set, because they work both ways.

Jake Winder: 50:05

Yeah, when situations change. And it always just boils down to balance, you know it's just we have to be balanced as athletes and balances coaches and just you know, really try to emphasize that. So it is interesting. Something I was thinking about on the drive over here is the concept that you hear sometimes of if you win an Olympic gold medal, you made it the rest of your life. You made it.

Jake Winder: 50:31

Like that's it, that's the end. I'll be all. I feel like that's the way a lot of people think, like if you accomplish this one thing at your young age, you know you've got a lot of life left to live. You know that it just sets you up for the rest of your life. So tell us a little bit about, like, what happened after you won the gold medal and just like, some of the good things and some of the tough things.

Katerina Stefanidi: 50:57

Yeah Well, so I had like a four year, so 16, 17, 18, 19,. I won the Diamond League, I think 17,. I went undefeated. I won World Championships. I was started in the world. I won two times the European Championships, so it wasn't.

Katerina Stefanidi: 51:16

I won the Olympics and then things came to me. It's like for four years in a row I won a lot of things. Things came to me, things came to us. You have to sing and I I listen to one of the things I told Katie because we had a long conversation after she won in Tokyo.

Katerina Stefanidi: 51:33

It's a very different market If you're American and if you're European, especially European from a small country. It's a very different market If you're a sprinter in your povolter also right. So we're talking about povol. Now, when I won in Rio, greece had five medals in those Olympics not in track and field, the whole Olympics. So it was one of five medals. You know, when Katie won, she was one of I don't know 30 American in track and field. So it's a very different market. So we had a lot of sponsors big sponsors, olympic sponsors like Toyota, like Visa, smaller companies and it almost becomes a little tough because of these big companies that have big budgets come to you and you start to set your price here. And then there's like really cool smaller companies come to you but they can only afford this much and you are like, well, this is not fair for them that are paying me this much for the exact same thing.

Katerina Stefanidi: 52:28

But I want to collaborate with you for this and this and this reason. But we had a few years that we definitely did very good, but I just can't know. But I had six, seven big sponsors, especially at some point. I don't think it's the same for Americans. I think Americans get paid more by apparel brands than Europeans do, but they're missing out on all the other sponsors because Toyota USA is only going to sponsor three people from track and field. There's such a big pool. Visa is only going to sponsor five people from track and field. So I think they kind of miss out on that.

Katerina Stefanidi: 53:08

We do, we make some money. You know it was very interesting throughout my career. At the beginning of my career the bigger percentage of our income was from competitions. You competed good. You made money. As I started to become more successful that went down, even though I kept doing good in these competitions. Percentage-wise that was a small percentage of our income compared to sponsorships. Now I would say, towards the last few years he has gone back to. You know you need to compete good. We still have some big sponsors, but it kind of goes up and down how that income works throughout your career.

Katerina Stefanidi: 53:49

I think it very much matters where you're from. I think I'm lucky to be from a small country with less Olympic medals every.

Jake Winder: 53:56

Olympics? Yeah, for sure, for sure, yeah, so was that like? Did you ever feel like someone? Some of these big companies came in and were like hey, we want to sponsor you and collaborate with you or whatever. Did you ever feel like pressure, like pressure to perform, or pressure just like no?

Katerina Stefanidi: 54:16

you know, I feel like with all those companies I actually have, well, except for one, I have one that I have this like bad feeling about. We're not together anymore but all the other companies, most of which I'm still with, actually I know the people. I know that they chose to sponsor me and not somebody else with an Olympic medal from Greece because of me, not because I won an Olympic medal, but they wanted Katerina. They wanted Katerina that has a master's degree that started at Stanford. I think it was like the whole package instead of an Olympic medal, which, like I said, we had five more.

Katerina Stefanidi: 54:52

And in Tokyo we had different people medal. So I do believe that in a small country like this, people get to know you more and companies are choosing to sponsor you. Not the athlete, but the person.

Jake Winder: 55:08

Right, right. So is there a certain level of celebrity that you like gain in Greece whenever you? Win the gold medal.

Katerina Stefanidi: 55:17

Oh yeah, it's Every time after a championship. It's pretty crazy.

Mitch Krier: 55:22

This year was by far the worst, so she didn't win anything.

Katerina Stefanidi: 55:25

It was like when you reach 10 years, then everybody has to win. You've done this a long time. You're always on.

Mitch Krier: 55:32

TV. You didn't win anything, but everywhere we went this year, it was just non-stop.

Katerina Stefanidi: 55:37

Is that right All the time we eat? If you go to the mall.

Mitch Krier: 55:39

If you go anywhere, people will stop you take pictures. They know her.

Katerina Stefanidi: 55:43

It's a different world.

Mitch Krier: 55:44

She's like a footballer basketball player would be in the US.

Katerina Stefanidi: 55:51

But over the years, after a championship I remember after the Olympics we pulled over I don't know if you've ever been to Greece we have this tiny little market it's literally like a box that sells gum and cigarettes because they're by the smokes and we literally pulled to the side of the road and Mitch ran out to buy a pack of gum and people came out of that little mini-market thing to take pictures with me in the car. I don't know if they recognized him or me from the car. It was insane. That's wild, yeah, and it has happened after every championship. And then suddenly this summer, I don't know what happened. I was everywhere we go and Greece has really bad parking issues, so you have to know how to parallel park and I'm very self-conscious about it and I feel like when I'm trying to parallel park, people are watching me and they're like oh, look at her, she can't park.

Jake Winder: 56:45

She can pull about 16 feet if she can't parallel park, the funny thing is she's a very good parker.

Katerina Stefanidi: 56:51

I don't know, what the security is. Well, it's like stress out about it.

Jake Winder: 56:55

I mean the anxiety that you get whenever I have to pull or parallel park is pretty bad, especially if somebody's behind you.

Katerina Stefanidi: 57:02

Oh my gosh, she's so bad.

Jake Winder: 57:06

So we don't want to keep you too long, since you're going to do a little workout after the later on in the day and once in time before that. But where are you at now? Where are we at? Both of you guys? I would be interested to hear both perspectives.

Katerina Stefanidi: 57:22

What makes you excited to retire?

Jake Winder: 57:25

Really.

Mitch Krier: 57:32

The sport is very long, it's very stressful, it's very frustrating In the beginning. I feel like as you're growing in it, you learn a little bit more and you're very excited and you think, oh, if we did this or if we did that, as far as like structure of the whole event, not pull, vaulting, I think pull vaulting is pull vaulting.

Mitch Krier: 57:52

It's relatively easy compared to like helping the sport become a sport Right. So as she got bigger and she joined, like World Athletics as an athlete representative and all of this, and you find out more and you think things are going well and then you realize how the chaos inside the whole system is and it's a long way from changing and a lot of things have to change before small good changes could happen. You get a little bit frustrated.

Jake Winder: 58:26

What are some things that you would want changed? I'm just curious.

Mitch Krier: 58:31

I mean, for instance, street meets and diamond leagues. They're putting street meets out more with professionals because the Olympic Committee wants them to, because they would like to see events outside of the stadium in the Olympics. So how would you like to qualify for the Olympics and go jump in a street meet in Tokyo?

Katerina Stefanidi: 58:53

In Paris.

Jake Winder: 58:53

Yes, Are you serious?

Mitch Krier: 58:55

Yeah, so this is like one of the big pushes because they think that we have to continue to change everything to stay tuned to the audience. So then, all of World Athletics money comes essentially from IOC. So IOC gives them money because they compete in the Olympics, they're the biggest sport. You get X money, whatever that, and then World Athletics gives them that money to federations to support the clubs.

Mitch Krier: 59:23

But then IOC is the one essentially funding everything, even though they're doing okay. They're setting up a pretty big meet, pretty good one, right, 100%. Yeah, you're giving your people, you're doing this, all the athletes are competing, ioc gets the money, then they give it to IAAA of World Athletics and then they decide the rules. But IOC is really deciding the rules based on what they want, which nobody knows anything about track and field and they're just doing what they think is going to be popular. Now, right, based on a whim, right, and you suggest basic things like have you ever done a survey at a street meet to see is this getting people to come into the stadium? Simple as that, right, like, hand out a survey there. Are you more likely, after watching this, to pay for a track and field in the stadium or are you going to watch it on TV? Because in the street meet.

Mitch Krier: 1:00:11

They've proved that they're crazy, expensive and they bring no revenue.

Jake Winder: 1:00:15

We were talking about that yesterday, but we're pushing the sport that way we were talking about it yesterday, about how it was just like the first question, somebody brought up that they ran a street meet in the States and they were like first question was it profitable? And he was like no, no, and that's what's so hard and we've talked about it too. Like do we put on an event Like rent stands, like big stands, and have like an elite event here? And we were like, okay, it'll probably cost around what do we say, 30? I think like to do it the way we would want to do it.

Jake Winder: 1:00:54

You do it, nice, you have the grand stands and you do, you have the TV, the real thing. And I was like, yeah, we were like we put it because we would pay all the athletes, pay them parents all that stuff and we were like 30 grand. And then we were like okay, and how much? How much revenue are we going to? Get on that 30 grand and we were like five.

Jake Winder: 1:01:17

Five grand and it's so difficult man. So yeah, these street meets, that's very interesting. It is interesting because I was over the last three years.

Mitch Krier: 1:01:27

it's like why there are a lot of like Diamond League street meets and like it's frustrating too, because even the CEO of World Athletics now he used to run a street meet in the UK and he said I do not like street meets.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:01:40

They lose money.

Mitch Krier: 1:01:42

They lose money, they cost a lot of money. They take a lot of time they don't do anything. I don't like street meets.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:01:47

And then Flip flop. So we were excited and a year later he's flip flopped all their time and okay, we got to have these street meets for this.

Mitch Krier: 1:01:54

Well, at least do a survey. Is it doing what you believe it's doing? We'll write the survey for you. You just need to hand it out. At all these meets you're doing. I don't know Like seriously this is how we're running a multimillion dollar corporation, is not? I don't know? Yeah, I can't take this free survey and hand it out and do it.

Jake Winder: 1:02:12

Could you imagine that scenario that you're talking about? Oh, I think we came close for Paris?

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:02:19

Yes, so I don't think it will happen, but I think we came close. So I don't know what will happen in LA. Yes, so I don't think I'll compete in LA, so I don't know my problem anymore. But I mean, I will feel terrible for all these people that are training for this year to go jump in front of the Eiffel Tower, that you probably there's already street meet doing that. Yeah, and it's just not the same feel.

Jake Winder: 1:02:47

No, my brother qualified for the world championships in 22 and I was coaching him there and I was just looking around it and the stadium was packed and I was just like this is a very special thing, like special moment in my life and special moment in his life, and then seeing Mando break the world record, you know, and the whole meet shut down and clap for him Like it was so cool, and you just there's absolutely no way you will be able to recreate that feeling on the street.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:03:21

No, no anyone would be more profitable. It's profitable.

Jake Winder: 1:03:24

Yeah, let's run a business please Like. At the end of the day, is it profitable? Yeah, stop asking everybody to volunteer their time for everything.

Mitch Krier: 1:03:32

It's crazy Like we heard a story I think it was Earl Bell. Somebody walked in his house and saw the a metal on the wall and said, oh, that's so cool, can I touch it? And he said the exact reason you're so excited about seeing that metal is exactly why the Olympics is the biggest scam in the world. Like you use these athletes, you don't allow them to use their own sponsors during this time, right, and then you make a ton of money. And then you send the athletes away that weren't allowed to make money even for what they do, and then they made you a lot of money.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:04:08

Like it's to me.

Mitch Krier: 1:04:10

This is the NCAA thing where they allowed people to. At least they were getting scholarships. They were getting $40,000 and scholarships. Okay, they're kind of. Maybe they're losing out a little bit, but nowhere near to what the Olympics is doing, wow, I never thought about it.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:04:26

And if you think, about it that way, like it's crazy to bring it back, because this whole conversation started with what would we change about the sport, or what is the problem with the sport?

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:04:37

I will tell you basic things. Like you arrive at a meet and they come to pick you up with a car that doesn't have racks, and, okay, I can tie the poles on the side, but it's not legal in Europe. You know, I've had that happen where I arrived at a meeting and I'm supposed to go to a train, so somebody supposed to meet me, take my poles and send me off to the train. And I arrive and they say, what is this pointing at the poles? Right, you know, you arrive at a meet, they come and they pick you up and they say, oh, we just have to go pick up one more person, but the one more person has an hour and a half delay. So you're now, after you've traveled 10 hours, you're waiting at the airport for two more hours for the other person so that they drive you together. So they're not going back and forth.

Mitch Krier: 1:05:17

Usually the drives are two, two and a half hours.

Jake Winder: 1:05:19

The logistics.

Mitch Krier: 1:05:20

Yeah, logistics, the everything Like it's tiring.

Jake Winder: 1:05:23

Yeah.

Mitch Krier: 1:05:24

Travel, travel, travel. You eat terrible hotel food Usually the hotel rooms are not great and you just travel in. You do this for three days, travel out and do it again next week, and this is the life.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:05:37

I think that at this point in our career, if I can go back and say, pay me less money, but I want you to take care of me, like I want you to bring a car that will take me straight to my hotel, pay me less money, I don't care. But for the rest of my career, you know, take care of me. I think I would do it, but I don't think we're ever given the option to do that.

Jake Winder: 1:05:57

Pay me less money and take that money and make sure your systems work. Yeah, like whatever systems you're using to manage the meat Like, make sure they're working.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:06:05

Yeah, and I mean it would help my performance too, right?

Jake Winder: 1:06:08

If I'm less tired, it will help your meat, that's a great, great comment, yeah, or even change the whole setup.

Mitch Krier: 1:06:14

Like right now. It's set up where the Diamond League takes care of everything. They organize the hotel and then they do the catering and they do the transport. Set it up like tennis. You guys get there, figure it out. Prize money is now three times higher because we're not paying for all of this stuff. That's not good anyway, yeah, it's going to make it more entertaining to watch on TV If somebody's jumping for $100,000 instead of $10,000.

Jake Winder: 1:06:38

Oh yeah.

Mitch Krier: 1:06:39

You know, like I think simple things like that change the marketing. They athletes can. Oh, I have a friend in England, I'll just stay with them. Then I'm staying with friends, wow, that's a great point. You know, like we save so much money, we save so much time and we can put it back in the sport. That helps market the sport. Not here's these athletes staying at the motel, eight and all Okay no more.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:07:00

Tell me about.

Mitch Krier: 1:07:03

Like I don't know.

Jake Winder: 1:07:04

Can we get you on the USA TF? We need him as the head of that thing. Man, this is that's crazy. That's. Those are all really great points that I'm sure not a lot of people think about. People think about when they see you, and part of this is social media. Part of this is just media in general is they see the gold medal and the picture with the gold medal and everything, and it's so cool and I'm so thankful that you guys took the time to come in here and just give us some background on what happens behind the scenes.

Mitch Krier: 1:07:43

I don't want to sound too depressing because I remember when I was jumping and Toby Stevenson had posted a video something like this after he retired and said like for all of you that want to make it, this is a hard sport. And it's not like the most deterring thing I ever heard. I like wanted to cry afterwards.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:08:01

And I was like, why did you say that? What is going on?

Mitch Krier: 1:08:06

And I understand, but I don't want to come across that way because it's cool. You, you see the world. Yeah, you see a lot of cool things. You learn a lot of cool people.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:08:14

You is this many years, you know, and you are started to be like well, you know, we saw in the demo like at the end of the media, give us a form to kind of give them feedback about different things. How was transfer, how was food? So you know, for years now we've given feedback on certain things that have not changed year after year to the point where you're like well, I don't want to give feedback, no more, because I'm just wasting my time.

Mitch Krier: 1:08:38

Yeah, I say, oh, you know it's serious. We're going to make controls of this, Like you don't change anything.

Jake Winder: 1:08:43

Right.

Mitch Krier: 1:08:44

Right Again, let's try to turn this back to a positive. Well, it's no, I mean, I mean, everybody.

Jake Winder: 1:08:50

so this, this will spin it to positive. Everybody would just completely trade everything to be able to have an Olympic gold medal. Like that is a cool, cool thing, that to have and what to be given one because one is very hard Right, right, right.

Jake Winder: 1:09:10

But but that's the positive about it. The positive is that you just you accomplished one of the hardest things there is to accomplish on planet earth, which is so cool. Like that is a very cool thing. But we can't the way that we stop the progress, because my I've at rise, like our, our situation here and all the things that we're doing. We're really trying to make an impact on on a lot of areas, but the business side of of pole belting and pushing and making smart moves like other sports do. So you can't just keep sweeping this stuff under the rug. You can't. You can't just take all those things that you just laid out and you can't just be like, oh man, all these things suck, I just sweep it under the rug and move to the mountains, biking every day.

Mitch Krier: 1:09:58

Enjoy your life.

Jake Winder: 1:09:59

So so that's and and that. So I think it is important to bring it up. I, I know it might seem like, oh, it's, this is depressing or this is going to deter people. It's not going to deter people, no, it's going to get people fired up. It's getting me fired up, like I. I feel like you know what. Let's start to just go after some of these things. You know, actually the international stuff and the world athletics. I'm going to I hope somebody else picks that up because I, I, I have my ideas about what I think can help, you know, grow our, our sport.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:10:32

But you know what Ty and I were talking about this one day. The problem is the sport has just enough money that you're like, oh, I want to want to win the demo. You know, I want to like, give it all to win the demo, like to win the world championships. I think if it will almost be better if the sport started losing more and more money for a big restructure to happen versus right now, there's just that like balance that keeps the floating.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:10:58

Just not the right way maybe, but I would say to you know the positive note again. I think that this is the cool part about the sport, because I don't believe anybody is doing this for money. I think they're doing it for this higher goal, regardless of money. I would have still done the exact same thing even if I didn't make the money. I did because of the goal of wanting to, you know, win the Olympics or go to the Olympics really, because that was really my goal. But you shouldn't have to choose that Right.

Jake Winder: 1:11:26

You shouldn't have to choose like hey, I'm one of the greatest athletes in the world and I'm going to choose. You know, like I should be.

Jake Winder: 1:11:34

I should be compensated for that you know, and you should be compensated for that If you're helping prepare her for that. And that's just how business works, because athletics, at the end of the day, is just another business. It's just another business, especially at the level that you're at, you know, and it just there's a lot of things that are messed up. But I think you made a point earlier that you said something that's somewhat controversial, which is, you know, people need to stop thinking that they have to give everything away for free and they have to stop just like being we have to. We have to charge money for stuff sometimes, and we and that was was really hard psychologically for me when I opened this place was I.

Jake Winder: 1:12:22

I. I knew what I wanted to do for the community, like I knew I wanted to have a place that kids could come and do this. I wanted it to be high quality, I wanted to have good people incorporated with it. But I knew, in order to have those things, I had to have money and I had to charge people, you know, for stuff, and I hate charging people money for stuff, but we will never, we will never grow if we don't do that, because it's just a basic human thing. You know, you have something of value that I want, which is pole vaulting, education or whatever. I'm willing to give you some of my money so that you can share with me some of that valuable thing, and it's just a basic human exchange, and I'm not. We're not looking for an unfair exchange, just a fair exchange. You're exchanging your information and your resources for my money.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:13:20

Well, and it also you know in either example makes you or you, more motivated to spend more time, to study more, to want to learn more, to teach better. So I think it makes the person who is receiving the money more motivated to do a better job now, since they're receiving the money.

Jake Winder: 1:13:37

Exactly Because when I go home and I tell my wife like, hey, I was gone, you know, all day yesterday, all day today, and my kids I got two little girls. When I tell them, hey, we're, you know, I was gone yesterday and I'm going to be gone today, you know, tonight probably two with the camp, but tomorrow we're going to go to a movie because I have enough money to take you to a movie and go do that. So then my family sees like, oh, this is an exchange, like we're going to have my dad gone for a little bit, but then we get to go and do cool things, you know, with him afterwards. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your whole life to be able to, like, try to run something like this or things like that. You know, it's just a fair exchange at the end of the day. So I could go for like hours talking about this. So what are we doing today? Really quick, after this, what's the workout looking like?

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:14:35

So I am at the three left and she's not allowed to go back. Yeah.

Mitch Krier: 1:14:42

She will very much want to. With no stimuli, she will go back to a full run and jump on big poles today, right?

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:14:50

I specifically didn't bring spikes for this reason. So yeah, where we're a three less, we I mean I had the injury in Budapest, so we're just starting to kind of run. We've trained a lot.

Jake Winder: 1:15:04

Was that injury really quick?

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:15:06

So in my very first you know like one thing that I've done since I was 11, in my very first drill, I felt like I bent the pole a lot and he was going to shoot me out of the pit Me too.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:15:18

that was nowhere close, but I just had this like feeling of like it was a 12 football 360 and she was going to jump out of the back of a pit and the funnest part is in that moment in the air, I thought, oh, if you fall off the back of the pit there was like a bunch of camera stuff You're going to sprain your ankle. So decided I was going to put my heel down on the pit to try to kind of like slow myself down, to not go off the back and as I put my heel down my spike go cold on the pit. Now this is World Champion, so it's a brand new pit, so it's pretty stiff as well and it kind of pulled me this way. I don't know how to explain this in words. So it turned out to be, I think, like a high ankle sprain which does take longer to recover from is been now almost two months. We've trained for one month. We've done a ton of core. I actually feel the strongest I've ever felt starting training.

Jake Winder: 1:16:09

Oh good.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:16:10

Yeah, so I think there was positives in all of that. I think really, without the injury we wouldn't be jumping right now. We would have taken what was Eugene at the Demolifinal mid-September. So we would have been just starting, maybe not jumping, just starting to train. So I feel like I'm a month ahead because of the injury now.

Mitch Krier: 1:16:33

Yeah, it's everything.

Katerina Stefanidi: 1:16:36

But the other day we did do like a crazy heel workout. So I am a little dead, my calf's a little sore. So I've said I'm going to start, I'm going to do a warmup and you know, I can take 10 jumps or I can take 50.

Jake Winder: 1:16:48

Yeah, yeah, just see where it goes. Yeah, but we're all looking forward to it.

Mitch Krier: 1:16:52

She wants to play on the little bowls is the truth. Hey, that's fine, we got a bunch of them over there, so Well, thank you guys, so much again.

Jake Winder: 1:16:59

Really appreciate it, and this is the one more jump podcast. See you guys.