In-form Imogen Ayris aiming high as New Zealand picks five pole vaulters for Commonwealth Games

Monday, 15 June 2026

The high-flying Imogen Ayris will be one of five Kiwi pole vaulters lining up at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Last time in-form Kiwi pole vaulter Imogen Ayris rolled into a Commonwealth Games she was as green as Kermit, felt zero pressure and walked away with a dream-come-true bronze medal she could scarcely believe had played out.

This time round, heading to Glasgow at the end of July as one of a record five pole vaulters in the 21-strong New Zealand athletics team unveiled on Monday, it’s a decidedly different dynamic for the now 25-year-old Loughborough-based Aucklander.

Ayris has come of age as an international athlete, with numbers and achievements that suggest she should be knocking loudly on the door of a second straight Commonwealth medal in the discipline.

With her 4.81-metre clearance in Turku, Finland, at the end of May (an outdoor PB by 11cm) she has the world’s equal fourth best height in 2026 (alongside Kiwi team-mate Eliza McCartney) and has climbed to seventh on the world rankings, and No 2 among Commonwealth athletes (behind only England’s Molly Caudery). She’s also ticked off her first Diamond League podium (in Morocco) and a world indoors bronze in Toruń, Poland.

It’s all a long way from Birmingham in 2022 when she hit the Games after no-heighting at the world championships in her black singlet senior debut, made it over 4.45m at her first crack in tricky conditions and secured the bronze in a nerve-racking countback scenario.

“It couldn’t be more different,” Ayris told The Post from her base in England. “Last time I was going in as a 21-year-old kid, it was my first time competing internationally as a senior, and I was just so happy to be there. There was not a drop of pressure on me, and no expectations.

Imogen Ayris cleared 4.70m to claim a pole vault bronze medal at the indoor world champs in Poland.

“Now I’m going in with expectations and pressure which is absolutely a privilege. I love the position I’m going in with. I have an agenda now, whereas last time we were, ‘let’s go have some fun, start this career off and see where it goes’.”

Ayris’ chief memory from Birmingham was the foot pain she was gritting her teeth through at the time, and also the angst she felt after no-heighting in qualification at the world champs in Oregon in a less-than-auspicious major champs debut.

“I had three weeks to figure out why and turn that around. I went in with a lot of doubt and negativity. ‘Am i not built for this? I don’t want to feel that disappointment again.’ But once I got over my opening bar, I was jumping free and having the time of my life.”

This time she’s positively flying, clearing a career-best 4.70 multiple times, and 4.76 once, during the indoor season, and then that 4.81 in Finland when she made it among the top 30 all-time in the discipline.

“The indoor season was just unbelievable,” she added. “I achieved all my goals for the year within three weeks. It was crazy. When I jumped 4.70 it was the biggest deal in the world and I fell apart after because it meant so much to me.

Geordie Beamish pips Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali for gold in the 3000m steeplechase at the Tokyo world championships.

“My brain kinda hadn’t caught up to the improvements I’d made physically. But now I’ve had time to process the new level I’ve unlocked, my brain has got there. Now I’m ready to jump these heights I’m capable of, and it’s exciting to start finding out how high I can really go.”

Ayris will be part of a world-class Kiwi women’s trio in Glasgow, alongside 2016 Olympic bronze medallist Eliza McCartney and 2025 London Diamond League winner Olivia McTaggart, and male athletes James Steyn and Nick Southgate.

The New Zealand team is sprinkled with world class, spearheaded by world, Commonwealth and Olympic champion high jumper Hamish Kerr, veteran shot put exponent Tom Walsh and standout sprinter Zoe Hobbs, fresh off a Diamond League podium in Oslo.

Steeplechase world champion Geordie Beamish will be the only Kiwi competing in multiple track events, handed permission to line up in the mile as well as the 3000m steeplechase, in which the Boulder-based Kiwi claimed a stunning world championships gold in Tokyo last year when he rocketed home from seventh to overhaul two-time Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali.

Beamish will be joined in the mile (back on the Games programme for the first time since 1966) by two-time Olympian Sam Tanner. Kiwi teen sensation Sam Ruthe, recovering from a stress fracture, had earlier withdrawn from contention to concentrate on the world under-20 championships.

Defending champion Walsh is joined in the men’s shot put by Birmingham silver medallist Jacko Gill and rising young thrower Nick Palmer, while while heptathletes Maddie Wilson and Briana Stephenson and decathlete Max Attwell get their first cracks at this level, as will South Africa-based world under-20 triple jump champion Ethan Olivier and men’s hammer thrower Anthony Barnes.

NZ athletics team for Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games: Men: Max Attwell, decathlon; Anthony Barmes, hammer throw; Geordie Beamish, 3000m steeplechase and mile; Jacko Gill, shot put; Hamish Kerr, high jump; Ethan Olivier, triple jump; Nick Palmer, shot put; James Preston, 800m; Nick Southgate, pole vault; James Steyn, pole vault; Sam Tanner, mile; Tom Walsh, shot put. Women: Imogen Ayris, pole vault; Lauren Bruce, hammer throw; Anna Grimaldi, 100m T47 (selected April 30); Zoe Hobbs, 100m; Eliza McCartney, pole vault; Olivia McTaggart, pole vault; Tori Moorby, javelin, Briana Stephenson, heptathlon; Maddie Wilson, heptathlon.