Olympic Champion Katie Moon Sheds Light on the Hidden Struggles of Her Early Career Days

Mar 14, 2024 | 8:39 AM EDT

Link Copied!

The Olympic Champion in women’s pole vault recently shared the hidden struggles of her early career days about insecurities that almost every young woman athlete undergoes during her performances. Thus, shedding light on body positivity in an interview with Ari Chambers, a woman sports personality, Katie Moon brings to light the discussion of body image in the track and field industry.

A reigning 2x World Champion at the 2022 World Athletics Championships and 2023 World Athletics Championships, she had to battle mental health issues. Her last report off-the-track revealed the statement, “I used to live in tears, and now I’m good.” Adding to it presently, in the recent episode of Team USA’s Woman to Woman series, Katie Moon chose to speak straightforwardly about the intrinsic concerns of many woman athletes.

Body positivity affects performance, Olympic Champion reveals

Article continues below this ad

On her road to the Paris Olympics 2024, Katie Moon, an American professional in pole vaulting, expressed her strong opinion about young girls getting intimidated by their bodies while doing their sports. Known for the fact that all female athletes’ bodies wanted to feel good in their skin, she had had a bad experience of under-eating ‘just’ to ‘look good’ in a sports outfit. However, growing up from that mindset, she said, “I just wish I had known back then it was about performance, and just how I felt, not how I looked, and that my body is just a byproduct of all the work that I put in.”

Olympic pole vault gold medalist @ktnago13 is raising awareness about body positivity in her sport ❤️#WomensHistoryMonth
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) March 13, 2024

Expand Tweet

Although the gold medalist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics off the track loves to do fashion, she explained her mindset’s evolution very openly. While many young female athletes who are growing into adulthood might be relating to whatever she said during the interview, Katie Moon’s primary goal was to explain to them by her own experience that even she had earlier thought, “If I had the body, then the results would come.” But on the contrary, just wanting “to feel good in the uniform” actually did not matter, until the focus on performance was a bang-on. Her only mantra is, “Look good, feel good, perform well.” With this optimism in mind, Katie Moon decides to deliver her best in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Future endeavors of Katie Moon

Article continues below this ad

Her ambition in the upcoming Summer Olympics is to repeat the history she made in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by etching the gold. Excelling the pole vault as the defending champion, Katie Moon recalled the unshakable confidence she got after proving her worth in the sport during the previous Olympic Games. But isn’t that a huge pressure?

She quoted to Forbes India after she represented as an ambassador in the Tata Mumbai Marathon 2024 in Mumbai, “It’s definitely pressure, but it has also instilled a confidence in me that is unshakeable because, while this doesn’t happen every single time, I was able to prove to myself that on the day it mattered most, I could do it.”, considering the Paris Olympics.

Article continues below this ad

Concerning the anxiety and stress of getting the supreme title in the Olympics once again, Katie Moon is confident to overpower her balance in wobbly situations, be it mentally or physically. And consequently, every fandom hopes for her to go for the event with the same vigor ahead.