Sam Kendricks wins Trials vault, still angry about Tokyo controversy
EUGENE — On second thought Sam Kendricks has decided to go to the Paris Olympics after all.Kendricks won the Olympic Trials pole vault at Hayward Field Sunday with a meet record 19-foot, 5 inch leap, and then said he would compete in Paris next month after threatening to boycott the Games a day earlier.
Kendricks is still angry not being to compete in the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19 shortly after arriving in Japan. Kendricks was unvaccinated.
Kendricks, a two-time World champion, first raised the possibility of skipping the Olympic Games when asked if he was excited to be at the Olympic Trials after Saturday’s qualifying round.
“I’m going to give you an answer you probably don’t want to hear,” said Kendricks, an Oceanside native who was a standout at Ole Miss. “I don’t like the Olympics. The Olympics screwed me. Everybody at Team USA left me behind. I don’t have any respect for the team. They just left me in Tokyo. If I make the team, I might no go.”
Kendricks was asked if he was serious?
“Heck, yeah, why not?” he responded. “…They kicked me off the first time in 2021. Why wouldn’t they do it again if they didn’t like me? We’ll see. Maybe I’m just bitter.”
Actually Kendricks was placed into quarantine by Japanese officials after he tested positive shortly before the pole vault competition. Kendricks according to social media accounts attended a party in Mississippi where many of the attendees were unmasked and unvaccinated.
Kendricks had recently trained with Australia’s Kurtis Marshall and three Australian track and field team members were also removed from the Olympic Village after officials learned of Kendricks positive test.
By Sunday night, the Trials gold medal around his neck, Kendricks said he would compete in Paris.
“I don’t want to be bitter with anyone,” he said. “I would eat with men, then kill them, I was think was the old quote. And I said I may not accept my spot on the Olympic team.
“I will.”
But Kendricks made it clear he still isn’t over the 2021 Olympic controversy. Asked if he wasn’t responsible for missing the Tokyo Olympics by refusing to comply with Japanese vaccination requirements, Kendricks doubled down on the way the matter was handled and claiming that he was prevented from defending his World title at the 2022 World Championships in Hayward Field because of state and local measures which prohibited non-vaccinated persons from entering the stadium.
“I was witheld from the World Championships here in Oregon,” Kendricks said. “They said I couldn’t get a credential to get in the door if I came…And the problem is that once again, somebody else not here in the sport is all of sudden (saying) you have to add something to your life that you don’t know much about to be a part of this again. As an athlete, I’m 100 percent accountable for what goes in my veins all the time, for good or for ill. I take that very seriously. But all of sudden, I’m forced to something. I don’t like being forced to do anything. I’m from the South.”
But Paul Doyle, Kendricks’ agent, told Reuters in July 2022, shortly before Worlds that Kendricks would miss the competition because his recovery from knee surgery that May had taken longer than expected.
“Although we hoped he would be at 100% for the World Championships, it has been a slower healing process than we expected,” Doyle said.
“Sam felt his time would be better spent rehabbing to get (ready) for meets post world championships.”
Kendricks said he decided to go forward with the surgery after because of the Oregon restrictions.
“Nobody is going to make me not stand on my beliefs,” he said. “Not from where I’m from. I’m from the United States of America. I don’t do anything I don’t want to. I live free.”
Kendricks suggested that U.S. officials would “probably gonna screw me again.
“I won’t let them do that. I’m too vocal. I’ve known too much about this score.”
Noah Lyles capped the night with a 9.83 victory in the 100 meter final, the first step toward his goal of winning four gold medals in Paris.
Kendall Ellis, the former USC standout now running for New Balance, won the 400 convincingly in 49.46 seconds, her first personal best in six years.