Katerina Stefanidi

Stefanidi was born into a sporting family, since both of her parents were athletes. Georgios, her father, played basketball professionally in Greece’s top division in addition to competing in the triple jump. Zoi, her mother, was a sprinter who primarily participated in the 400 metre dash. In her youth, Stefanidi played a variety of sports, including volleyball, basketball, gymnastics, ballet, and table tennis. She slowly started taking part in track and field competitions.  Her father became interested in the pole vault after watching the 2000 Summer Olympics on television and encouraged his daughter to pursue it.

Although she didn’t enjoy pole vaulting at first, she preferred it over sprinting events. Katerina competed in her maiden event the following summer. She set a world age-group record of 2.30 meters despite not having adequate strength to bend the pole. She leapt 3.40 meters to establish a new 12-year-old age group world record. She increased her personal best in 2003, setting a world record for 13-year-olds with a distance of 3.90 meters. In 2014, she broke the previous record for 14-year-olds by leaping 4.14 meters. She established a world youth record by leaping 4.37 meters indoors in Athens in February 2005. She jumped 4.30 meters to win the gold at the World Youth Championships that summer in Morocco.

Her father and former coach Panagiotis Simeonidis continually accusing her of the weight gain caused her to develop borderline bulimia. Stefanidi opted to give up pole vaulting and skipped the 2006 World Junior Championships in Beijing. Stefanidi decided to return to the sport a few months later. Georgia Tsiligri, a pole vaulter, became her new coach. Her season-best jump was 4.25 metres, and she took home a silver medal at the World Youth Championships in 2007.

Stefanidi’s relationship with her father, however, was strained. They hadn’t spoken for almost two years. She quickly started researching American universities in an effort to start again and stay away from her family. She prepared her application materials, took the SATs, and even though she didn’t know what Stanford was at the time, she followed the advice to apply there. She contacted them and requested a full scholarship because they had never contacted her.  Stefanidi’s parents travelled to the US that summer after she was admitted and awarded a full scholarship. She eventually moved in with her parents. Stefanidi began crying when they picked her up from the San Francisco airport and expressed her desire to return to Greece. But as soon as she got to university, she fell in love and decided on to stay.

During lectures, she frequently had trouble understanding the professor . Her conversational English was still far from good, and she had to acquire American English in addition to the British English she had previously been taught. She started to struggle with her weight once more. She could barely leap 4.13 metres that year and returned to Greece in the summer 20 pounds overweight. Olympic silver medallist from the 2004 games, Toby Stevenson, who Stefanidi adored when she was younger, took over as coach at Stanford. Stefanidi was inspired by this alteration to work out more and improve her diet in order to lose weight.

She struggled despite Stevenson’s intervention, who drew her aside and questioned her sincerity in her desire to compete in the pole vault. She ultimately made the decision to stay at Stanford and continue her pole vaulting career.  She quit binge-eating as a result of the enthusiasm of her teammates and coaches, who provided her the physical and mental boost. For the first time in six years, Stefanidi broke her own record in 2011 when she jumped 4.45 metres. She won the conference title in addition to medals in the World University Games, European U23 Championships, NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships, and the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships. She won the conference title once more and captured the NCAA title in her final year at Stanford with a leap of 4.48 metres, a Stanford record.

Stefanidi began applying to PhD schools in 2013, as she needed to keep her student visa in order to lawfully stay in the United States. She packed her belongings for Phoenix, where she attended Arizona State University and be coached by Olympic gold champion Nick Hysong. Despite a 2013 season marred by injuries, Stefanidi recovered in 2014 with a bang. With a leap of 4.71 metres, she broke her own record and captured her first-ever senior-level medal, a silver at the European Championships in Switzerland. She competed in the European Indoor Championships in Prague in 2015 and earned a silver medal for clearing 4.77 meters indoors.

Stefanidi married Mitchell Krier in May 2015, and he resigned from his jobs as a contractor and personal trainer to work with her exclusively as a coach. He discovered the most effective methods for motivating his wife. Katerina earned a bronze medal in the World Indoor Championships in Oregon in March 2016. Later that year, she won gold at the European Championships in Amsterdam with a leap of 4.86 meters, surpassing the previous Greek record. After that, she battled a hip issue and missed two weeks of training. She wasn’t able to jump again until three days before the Olympics. Nonetheless, Stefanidi claimed the gold medal for Greece with a jump of 4.85 meters, becoming only the seventh Greek woman to do it in any sport.

She won the European title in the 2017 indoor season with a jump of 4.85 meters. At the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London, Stefanidi took home the gold medal after setting a new world record and breaking her own Greek record by vaulting 4.91 meters. With 14 straight victories, Katerina finished the 2017 outdoor season unbeaten and won the Diamond League title in Brussels. On Saturday, October 14, 2017, she was crowned European Women’s Athlete of the Year. She captured the bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics in Doha and won the Diamond League series for a record fourth straight year in 2019. She placed fourth at the 2020 Olympics, matching her season’s best of 4.80 meters.

Mitchell Krier, her husband, is also her coach at present. He is a former pole vaulter. Mitchell is a McPherson College graduate and worked as a personal trainer, self-employed contractor, and coach for RISEN Performance.

Katerina Stefanidi was born on 4 February, 1990, to athletes Georgios Stefanidis and Zoi Vareli. Her younger sister, Georgia, is also a pole vaulter. Katerina presently lives in the United States with her husband, Mitchell Krier, also her coach.