Three years ago, pole vaulter Angelica Moser had a terrible accident during training. Seasons followed that were marked by injuries and uncertainty. At the European Championships in Rome, Moser is now one of the medal contenders.
Angelica Moser and her trainer Adrian Rothenbühler have a loving dispute. Instead of a bar, there is an elastic rope hanging on the pole vaulting facility in Magglingen. Moser is of the opinion that this sags by 20 centimeters, so the obstacle is 4.75 meters high. Rothenbühler thinks it is at most 10 or 15 centimeters, so the height is over 4.80. Moser has never jumped higher than 4.75 meters in a competition.
This leads to the second discussion between the two. In training, Rothenbühler sometimes sets heights that are apparently out of reach for Moser. The 26-year-old from Zurich then says: “I want to get over that one day too.” Rothenbühler replies: “Then do it.”
Rothenbühler is one of the most prominent coaches in Swiss athletics, became known as a supporter of Mujinga and later Ditaji Kambundji, this collaboration ended in 2022. When Rothenbühler discusses the next goals with an athlete, he draws four squares. These stand for “technique”, “athletics”, “mental” and “environment”. Underneath the individual points are things that need to be improved in the respective subject areas in order to be successful. With Moser, the two found many areas of improvement in the mental and environmental areas. Rothenbühler says: “I encountered a destabilized athlete.” That was in spring 2023.
In 2021 it comes to a standstill
Today, in the week before the European Championships in Rome, Rothenbühler speaks differently. At the beginning of May, Moser won her first Diamond League meeting in Marrakesh, and a week later she triumphed at a competition in Nancy. Rothenbühler says: “The way things are going now, we have to talk about a European Championship medal.” And Moser says: “The goal is to improve my personal best, then a podium place in Rome is possible.” As we know, there are many roads to Rome; Moser’s path was arduous.
The Olympic cycle that ends in Paris only lasted three years because the games in Tokyo were postponed. But Moser has experienced more in this time than others have in an entire career. In the beginning, there was a standstill.
Although she became European indoor champion in the winter of 2021, she missed the final at the Olympic Games in Tokyo the following summer. The disappointment was great. A week after returning from Japan, Moser experienced what pole vaulters fear most. During training, the pole broke and she crashed back-first into the puncture box.
The diagnosis: a small pneumothorax – air that had penetrated between the inner and outer pleura -, torn muscle fibers, and a bruise on the back. In the hospital, Moser asked the doctors when she would be allowed to jump again. They said: “Be happy that you can still walk.” The Austrian Kira Grünberg had an accident during training in 2015 in a similar way to Moser. She has been in a wheelchair ever since.
Joy about the first push-up
After the accident, Moser was unable to move her left arm. She was only allowed to go for walks with someone accompanying her, as her circulation was weak. She fainted during physiotherapy and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance. She says: “It was mentally difficult. I didn’t feel like doing anything.”
Things only got better when she was allowed to do sports again. During training, Moser was happy with every exercise that worked, for example when she managed to do a push-up for the first time. She says: “I noticed that nothing is a given. I didn’t think for a second about giving up.”
Moser fought her way back into competitions and says that today it feels as if the accident happened a long time ago. “So much has happened since then,” she says. By that she means recurring injuries, changes of coach, an uncertain future. Before that, she worked for a year with the Swiss record holder Nicole Büchler, but she was no longer able to travel to international competitions for family reasons. Moser suddenly lost her head coach, the closest person to a top athlete.
During training and competitions, she had trouble switching to harder poles that bounce more. Moser felt unsettled and sometimes ran through after the run-up instead of jumping off. If you lack confidence in pole vaulting, things get complicated. In this sport, all components have to fit together: run-up, take-off, flight phase. If you lack confidence, the process is disrupted.
The power is there, but too little happens with this power
The uncertainties and injuries culminated in the botched 2023 European Indoor Championships in Istanbul. Moser felt that she had to change something and intensified her collaboration with Rothenbühler. Rothenbühler had been responsible for Moser’s athletics and sprint training for some time, and has been the main person in charge since spring 2023. It gradually became clear that Rothenbühler was the ideal solution, even if he did not come from pole vaulting, says Moser. Rothenbühler was a multi-athlete himself and says pole vaulting was always his favorite discipline, “even though I wasn’t particularly talented.” Moser says: “At the beginning, my opponents asked me who my coach was.”
Rothenbühler quickly sensed how unsettled his athlete was and had her work on mental aspects with experts. He says: “I told her that I could make her stronger and faster. But if the mental foundation is missing, none of that will help.”
The duo focused more on the basics in terms of sport. “We stopped tweaking every little screw,” says Moser. This helped to stabilize the mental state and the environment. Rothenbühler says that at the last meeting there were almost no open points left in these areas.
More nervous before the qualification than before the final
Moser also says that the blockages of the past have disappeared: “I jump with full conviction.” The collaboration with Rothenbühler bore fruit for the first time in the summer of 2023. Moser finished fifth in the World Championships and qualified for the Olympics. She burst into tears in front of the TV camera, such was the relief.
Shortly before the European Championships in Rome, she seems relaxed. During the last days of training in Magglingen, Moser sometimes jokes with her coach and the ice hockey players who are currently taking the military refresher course.
The pole vault qualification takes place in Rome on Saturday. Moser is nervous, more nervous than before a possible final. She says: “I’m not afraid, I’ve never been afraid before big competitions.” Rothenbühler thinks that Moser’s nervousness is a good sign. “On a golden day, there are hardly any limits for her.”