Katerina Stefanidi

She competed for the first time at the European Athletics Team Championships 1st league, held in Tallinn, representing Greece and winning with a 4.55 m jump.

She managed to improve her PB again at the Glasgow Diamond League in with a jump at 4.65 m. One week before the European Championships she set another personal best at 4.71 m, equaling the Greek national record.

Katerina Stefanidi (Greek: Κατερίνα Στεφανίδη; born 4 February 1990 ) is a Greek pole vaulter.

She received her master's degree in cognitive psychology with Dr. Gene A. Brewer at Arizona State University while training under the guidance of 2000 Olympic pole vault champion Nick Hysong.

At Stanford, Stefanidi broke the freshman school record with a leap of 4.13 m, under the guidance of coach Kris Mack and head coach Edrick Floreal.

At age 15, Stefanidi became the 2005 World Under-18 champion and earned silver at the 2007 edition of this championships.

Growing up she broke all of the world age-group records for the ages of 11–14 and right after she turned 15, she broke the world under-18 best with a jump of 4.37 m. Her first international experience came at the age of 15, when she represented Greece at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Marrakesh, winning the gold medal and setting a championship record of 4.30 m in the process.

She broke the national high school pole vault record and the championship record, winning gold at the 2006 Gymnasiade.

At the 2007 edition held in Ostrava, she was second with 4.25 m. In 2008, the 18-year-old won the bronze medal with 4.25 m at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The same year, she gained an athletic scholarship at Stanford University and began competing for the Stanford Cardinal.

The 18-year-old won bronze at the 2008 World U20 Championships.

In 2010, under the guidance of Toby Stevenson, she tied for fifth place (4.30 m) at the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships, was the Pac-10 Conference champion and tied for fourth (4.25 m) at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships, after breaking the school record multiple times.

She then placed second at the 2011 European U23 Championships and third at the 2011 Universiade.

In 2011, she was second at the NCAA Indoors with 4.40 m. That same year she defended her Pac-10 Conference title (4.28 m) and was third at the NCAA Outdoors with 4.40 m. She placed second at the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava, Czechia and third at Universiade in Shenzhen, China, after jumping a personal best of 4.45 m in both competitions to tie the Greek U23 record.

Her senior year, Stefanidi placed third at the NCAA Indoors (4.35 m).

In the 2012 outdoor season, she was again the Pac-12 Conference champion in Eugene, Oregon, where she broke her own school record with 4.48 m. A month later she became the NCAA champion in Des Moines, Iowa, clearing 4.45 m. Her season's best, 4.51 m, achieved in July in Livermore, California, is the Greek under-23 record.

In 2013, she faced some injury problems, thus not improving her personal best, with a 4.45 m season's best.

In the 2014 indoor season, she improved her personal best to 4.55 m. In the 2014 outdoor season, she improved her lifetime best to 4.57 m and then established even better best of 4.60 m at the Diamond League meeting in New York City.

At the 2014 European Championships held in Zürich, Switzerland she had an easy qualification, while in the final she had her first success in major events by winning the silver medal with 4.60 m, losing the gold medal in the very last jump of the event to Anzhelika Sidorova.

She later won the Birmingham Diamond League meeting with 4.57 m and took the third place at the circuit's final held in Zürich with 4.67 m. With these results, she took the second place overall at the Diamond League series, only behind Fabiana Murer.

During 2014, she jumped 10 times above 4.55 m, while her pre-2014 PB was 4.51 m.

In 2015, she married Mitchell Krier, her future coach and also a former pole vaulter.

She lives in the United States.

Stefanidi attended the 1st High School of Pallini where she won the National High School Championships.

During the 2015 indoor season, she set a personal best four times (4.56 m, 4.60 m, 4.61 m and 4.77 m, which was temporarily the national record).

At the 2015 European Indoor Championships, she won the silver medal with 4.75 m.

During training season and outside of competitions, Stefanidi trained at SPIRE Institute and Academy, a United States Olympic Training Center in Geneva, Ohio.

She won the gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and has also competed at the 2012 London and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

At the European Athletics Championships, she won two gold medals (2016, 2018) and two silvers (2014, 2022).

Indoors, she is a two-time World Indoor bronze medallist from 2016 and 2018, was the 2017 European Indoor champion and earned silver at the 2015 European Indoor Championships.

She won four Diamond League Trophies between 2016 and 2019.

In the 2016 indoor season, she set a national record with a huge leap of 4.90 m at the Millrose Games, which ranked her at fourth place of all time in the event, tied with Demi Payne who cleared the same height at the same meeting.

At the World Indoor Championships in Portland, Oregon, Stefanidi won the bronze medal with a jump of 4.80 m.

In the following months she continuously improved her personal outdoor record (4.73, 4.75 and 4.77 m), and in Filothei, she set a Greek record of 4.86 m. In July at the Amsterdam European Championships, she won the gold medal with 4.81 m, taking the competition record from Yelena Isinbayeva.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Stefanidi became Olympic champion with a jump of 4.85 m, becoming the seventh Greek female athlete to win a gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games.

Stefanidi was the 2017 World champion and earned bronze at the 2019 World Championships.

Stefanidi was voted the European Women's Athlete of the Year in 2017 and the Greek Female Athlete of the Year in 2017 and 2019.

Because of her achievements she is widely regarded as the greatest female athlete in the history of Greek sport.

Katerina Stefanidi was born to athletes Georgios Stefanidis and Zoi Vareli, who competed internationally in the triple jump and sprints, respectively.

Her younger sister, Georgia, is also a pole vaulter.