Sally Simpson

Sally is our greatest female pole vaulter, winning seven outdoor and two indoor Welsh titles between 2010 and 2018. She is also a four-time British champion winning two indoor and two outdoor titles.

She took her Welsh outdoor record to 4.40m in 2014, a record which still stands today and was the second best in the UK that year behind her great friend UK record holder Holly Bradshaw. Her ultimate personal best is 4.42m set indoors in 2012 which ranked her 4^th in Britain that year.

Her finest performance, however, came in a howling gale in the famous Hampden Park Glasgow football stadium in 2014, when she took the Commonwealth Games pole vault silver medal with an outstanding leap - bearing in mind the conditions - of 4.25m, which was some way off her Welsh record outdoor best of 4.40m set the previous month in a test event for the Games.

But there was a chance that her glory day may not have happened due to the extreme conditions, as the event could been postponed or even cancelled due to the constant rain. But as Sally said afterwards: “I’m obviously glad that the decision was made to continue as I have vaulted many times in these conditions and felt confident that I could do well.” And so she became only the second Welsh vaulter behind gold medallist Neil Winter in 2014, to win a medal at these games. Although Hawarden-born Howard Ford won silver for England in 1930.

The conditions were so bad that only four of the ten competitors registered a height with the gold going to Australia’s Alana Boyd who retained her title with 4.50m but she was way off her personal best of 4.76m. In fact, she only cleared her opening height of 4.15m at her third attempt a height Sally had already cleared. So there was a good chance that she would emulate Winter and become Commonwealth pole vault champion. But Boyd deservedly went on to her second gold in the event after her win in the 2010 Delhi Games. It was the third Commonwealth gold for the Boyd family as her father Ray took the event on home soil in Brisbane in 1982.

Sally credited her silver medal to one of the world’s best pole vault coaches, and future husband Scott Simpson who coached her since she started vaulting in 2008. Scott was also the Welsh national coach at the time, as well as being the lead UK pole coach where he was responsible for UK record holder Holly Bradshaw’s performances. There is no doubt that Sally benefited from training with 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Holly in one of the finest pole vault training groups in the world in Cardiff.

Before taking up pole vaulting, Sally won Welsh junior titles at long and triple jump.

She represented Great Britain at the 2011 Summer Universiade in China where she just missed bronze. Sally competed in the 2012 Helsinki European Championships, as well as wearing the red vest for Wales at the 2010, 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games where she finished 10^th with 4.30m – 5 cms better than he silver medal performance 4 years earlier.

Sally was deservedly inducted into our Hall of Fame in 2022.

Clive Williams