Jillian Schwartz
Encyclopedia
Jillian Schwartz is an American
-born pole vault
er who competes internationally for Israel
. She represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics
and competed at four consecutive World Championships in Athletics from 2003 to 2009. Her best placing in international competition was fourth at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
.
She competed at the NCAA championships while at Duke University
and gained All-America
honours on three occasions. Although she never won at a USATF Championships event, she took the runner-up spot on three occasions at both the USA Outdoor
and USA Indoor Championships
. Her personal best mark is 4.72 m, set indoors in Jonesboro, Arkansas
in 2008. Since gaining Israeli citizenship in 2010, she has set Israeli record
s in the pole vault both outdoors and indoors.
, she was raised in Lake Forest
. She wanted to take up pole vaulting at Lake Forest High School
, but was not allowed as the girl's vault was not allowed in Illinois until 1997. She moved to Arkansas
in order to train in the discipline. Schwartz attended Duke University
and became the first woman to win an Eastern College Athletic Conference
title for the Duke Blue Devils
in 1999. The following year she won the Atlantic Coast Conference
pole vault title and came third at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship. She attended the United States Olympic Trials
for the first time in 2000, but failed to register a height. In her final year at Duke, in 2001, she set university records of 4.10 m indoors and 4.32 m outdoors, as well as winning the ACC outdoor and indoor titles. She claimed second place at the NCAA Outdoors and signed with Nike that summer, deciding to turn professional.
behind Mary Sauer
and improved her outdoor best to 4.50 m. However, she only managed tenth place at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
that year. She placed sixth at the 2003 USA Indoors but rebounded with a second place finish at the outdoor nationals. This gained her a place on the team for the 2003 World Championships in Athletics
and she came eighth in the qualifying round of the vault. The 2004 season proved to be her breakthrough year as she was runner-up to Stacy Dragila
at the USA Indoor Championships and then placed fourth at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
, vaulting a personal best mark of 4.60 m. She achieved the same mark outdoors to take second at the Prefontaine Classic
and was runner-up to Dragila at the 2004 Olympic Trials, securing her first Olympic berth. She cleared 4.30 m in the qualifying rounds of the 2004 Athens Olympics, but this was not enough to make the final.
Schwartz did not compete indoors in 2005 but managed to finish in the top three at the USA Outdoors. One of three Americans in the women's pole vault at the 2005 World Championships in Athletics
(along with Dragila and Tracy O'Hara), she finished second in the qualifying but could not repeat her form in the final round, ending up in eleventh place.
She became the Voluntary Assistant Coach for the Columbia University
track and field team in 2008. She was the runner-up at both the national outdoor and indoor championships in 2006 and improved her best by a centimeter to 4.61 m in Jonesboro, Arkansas
. She competed at the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships
, but did not make it into the final on this occasion. She also made appearances on the 2006 IAAF Golden League
circuit
Her progress stagnated in 2007 as she failed to clear higher than 4.50 m. Still, she took third place at the USA Outdoors and competed at the 2007 World Championships
, where she achieved her season's best of 4.50 m in qualifying. She started 2008 with a big personal best indoors in Jonesboro, improving 12 cm with a clearance of 4.72 m. She was again the runner-up at the USA Indoors, this time behind Jennifer Stuczynski
. At the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships
in Valencia, Spain, she was eliminated once again at the qualifying stage. She set her sights on making the team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and had podium finishes at the Reebok Grand Prix
and the Adidas Track Classic
. However, she came fourth at the 2008 United States Olympic Trials, being beaten by the less-established April Steiner Bennett
and Erica Bartolina.
, but was gifted a place at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics
as the reigning US Champion Stuczynski withdrew due to injury. Schwartz vaulted 4.50 m at the championships in Berlin
, just missing the qualifying mark by 5 cm. She competed at the Maccabiah Games
in Israel
that year and won the pole vault gold medal
for the United States. Officials approached her about a possible move to compete for Israel and she agreed, seeing it as a better chance to participate at the 2012 London Olympics given the strong competition for place in the United States. She switched nationality and gained Israeli citizenship in preparation for the 2010 season. She set an Israeli record
mark of 4.60 m indoors in Jonesboro in May 2010 and then set an outdoor record of 4.60 m at the Adidas Grand Prix.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-born pole vault
Pole vault
Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long, flexible pole as an aid to leap over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the Cretans and Celts...
er who competes internationally for Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. She represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
and competed at four consecutive World Championships in Athletics from 2003 to 2009. Her best placing in international competition was fourth at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Budapest Arena, Hungary between March 5 and March 7, 2004...
.
She competed at the NCAA championships while at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and gained All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
honours on three occasions. Although she never won at a USATF Championships event, she took the runner-up spot on three occasions at both the USA Outdoor
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
The USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
and USA Indoor Championships
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships
The USA Indoor Track and Field Championships is an annual indoor track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
. Her personal best mark is 4.72 m, set indoors in Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
in 2008. Since gaining Israeli citizenship in 2010, she has set Israeli record
Israeli records in athletics
The following are the national records in athletics in Israel maintained by Israeli Athletic Association .-Men:-Women:-Men:-Women:ht = hand timing# = not recognised by federationOT = oversized trackA = affected by altitude- External links :...
s in the pole vault both outdoors and indoors.
Early life and college
Born in Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, she was raised in Lake Forest
Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
. She wanted to take up pole vaulting at Lake Forest High School
Lake Forest High School (Illinois)
Lake Forest High School, or LFHS, is a public four-year high school located in Lake Forest, Illinois, a North Shore suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is the only school of Lake Forest Community High School District 115, which serves the communities of Lake Forest, Lake Bluff,...
, but was not allowed as the girl's vault was not allowed in Illinois until 1997. She moved to Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
in order to train in the discipline. Schwartz attended Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and became the first woman to win an Eastern College Athletic Conference
Eastern College Athletic Conference
The Eastern College Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 21 sports . It has 317 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location from Maine to North Carolina and west to Illinois...
title for the Duke Blue Devils
Duke Blue Devils
Duke University's 26 varsity sports teams, known as the Blue Devils, compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The name comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry...
in 1999. The following year she won the Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...
pole vault title and came third at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship. She attended the United States Olympic Trials
United States Olympic Trials (track and field)
The United States Olympic Trials for the sport of Track and Field is the quadrennial meet to select the United States representatives at the Olympic Games. Since 1992, the meet has also served as the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Because of the depth of competition in some events,...
for the first time in 2000, but failed to register a height. In her final year at Duke, in 2001, she set university records of 4.10 m indoors and 4.32 m outdoors, as well as winning the ACC outdoor and indoor titles. She claimed second place at the NCAA Outdoors and signed with Nike that summer, deciding to turn professional.
Olympic and World Championship competition
She was the runner-up at the 2002 USA Indoor Track and Field ChampionshipsUSA Indoor Track and Field Championships
The USA Indoor Track and Field Championships is an annual indoor track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
behind Mary Sauer
Mary Sauer
Mary Sauer-Vincent is an American pole vaulter. Her personal best jump is 4.65 metres, achieved in July 2002 in Madrid....
and improved her outdoor best to 4.50 m. However, she only managed tenth place at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
The USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
that year. She placed sixth at the 2003 USA Indoors but rebounded with a second place finish at the outdoor nationals. This gained her a place on the team for the 2003 World Championships in Athletics
2003 World Championships in Athletics
The 9th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held from 23 August to 31 August 2003 in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Track:...
and she came eighth in the qualifying round of the vault. The 2004 season proved to be her breakthrough year as she was runner-up to Stacy Dragila
Stacy Dragila
Stacy Renée Mikaelsen is an American former pole vaulter.She won the first gold medal in women's pole vaulting at the 2000 Summer Olympics coached by Dave Nielsen...
at the USA Indoor Championships and then placed fourth at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Budapest Arena, Hungary between March 5 and March 7, 2004...
, vaulting a personal best mark of 4.60 m. She achieved the same mark outdoors to take second at the Prefontaine Classic
Prefontaine Classic
The Prefontaine Classic is one of the premier track and field meets in the United States. Every year it draws a world caliber field to compete at the University of Oregon's Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.-History:...
and was runner-up to Dragila at the 2004 Olympic Trials, securing her first Olympic berth. She cleared 4.30 m in the qualifying rounds of the 2004 Athens Olympics, but this was not enough to make the final.
Schwartz did not compete indoors in 2005 but managed to finish in the top three at the USA Outdoors. One of three Americans in the women's pole vault at the 2005 World Championships in Athletics
2005 World Championships in Athletics
The 10th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland , the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983. One theme of the 2005 championships was paralympic sports, some of...
(along with Dragila and Tracy O'Hara), she finished second in the qualifying but could not repeat her form in the final round, ending up in eleventh place.
She became the Voluntary Assistant Coach for the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
track and field team in 2008. She was the runner-up at both the national outdoor and indoor championships in 2006 and improved her best by a centimeter to 4.61 m in Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
. She competed at the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships
2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 11th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations was held in Moscow from March 10 to March 12, 2006 in the Olimpiyski Sport arena....
, but did not make it into the final on this occasion. She also made appearances on the 2006 IAAF Golden League
IAAF Golden League
The IAAF Golden League was an annual series of track and field meetings organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations...
circuit
Her progress stagnated in 2007 as she failed to clear higher than 4.50 m. Still, she took third place at the USA Outdoors and competed at the 2007 World Championships
2007 World Championships in Athletics
The 11th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan from 24 August to 2 September 2007...
, where she achieved her season's best of 4.50 m in qualifying. She started 2008 with a big personal best indoors in Jonesboro, improving 12 cm with a clearance of 4.72 m. She was again the runner-up at the USA Indoors, this time behind Jennifer Stuczynski
Jennifer Stuczynski
Jennifer "Jenn" Suhr is the number one ranked American pole vaulter since 2006. She has won a total of 9 US National Championships. She holds the American women's pole vault record both indoors and outdoors. In 2008 she won the U.S. Olympic trials setting an American Record of and won a silver...
. At the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships
2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held at the Luis Puig Palace in Valencia, Spain, March 7-9, 2008.-Bid:Valencia was announced the winning bidder by the IAAF on November 13, 2005 at an IAAF Council meeting in Moscow, Russia.-Men:...
in Valencia, Spain, she was eliminated once again at the qualifying stage. She set her sights on making the team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and had podium finishes at the Reebok Grand Prix
Reebok Grand Prix
The Adidas Grand Prix, formerly the Reebok Grand Prix, is an annual athletics meeting at the Icahn Stadium in New York City, United States. Previously one of the IAAF Grand Prix events, it is now part of the IAAF Diamond League.-World records:...
and the Adidas Track Classic
Adidas Track Classic
The Adidas Track Classic is an American track and field athletics meeting which has taken place annually in Carson, California since 2005. The meeting forms part of the USA Track & Field Visa Championship Series and is also one of the few area meetings where athletes can earn points to qualify for...
. However, she came fourth at the 2008 United States Olympic Trials, being beaten by the less-established April Steiner Bennett
April Steiner Bennett
April Steiner Bennett is an American pole vaulter. Her personal best is , achieved in April 2008 in Norman, Oklahoma.-Personal life:...
and Erica Bartolina.
Move to Israel
She came fourth at the 2009 USA Outdoor Championships2009 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
The 2009 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships took place between June 25–28 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The competition acted as a way of selecting the United States team for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin later that year....
, but was gifted a place at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics
2009 World Championships in Athletics
The 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics were held in Berlin, Germany from 15–23 August 2009. The majority of events took place in the Olympiastadion, while the marathon and racewalking events started and finished at the Brandenburg Gate....
as the reigning US Champion Stuczynski withdrew due to injury. Schwartz vaulted 4.50 m at the championships in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, just missing the qualifying mark by 5 cm. She competed at the Maccabiah Games
Athletics at the 2009 Maccabiah Games
Athletics at the 2009 Maccabiah Games were held on July 14-July 15, at the Hadar Yosef Stadium. The half marathon was held on July 21 at Netanya-Men:* Results in italic had not been accumulated in the medal count-Women:...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
that year and won the pole vault gold medal
Gold medal
A gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
for the United States. Officials approached her about a possible move to compete for Israel and she agreed, seeing it as a better chance to participate at the 2012 London Olympics given the strong competition for place in the United States. She switched nationality and gained Israeli citizenship in preparation for the 2010 season. She set an Israeli record
Israeli records in athletics
The following are the national records in athletics in Israel maintained by Israeli Athletic Association .-Men:-Women:-Men:-Women:ht = hand timing# = not recognised by federationOT = oversized trackA = affected by altitude- External links :...
mark of 4.60 m indoors in Jonesboro in May 2010 and then set an outdoor record of 4.60 m at the Adidas Grand Prix.