Stacy Dragila

Stacy Dragila is an Olympic Gold Medalist in pole vaulting, a coach and mentor, and motivational and educational speaker.

Dragila is an athletic pioneer who literally crashed the glass ceiling of Olympic Athletics when she soared over 15’ in the air on a fiberglass pole and won the inaugural women’s pole vault at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In the face of gender stereotypes that insisted that women “aren’t strong enough” to pole vault and that “nobody cares” if women vault, Dragila and her fellow self-described “chicks on sticks” set out to prove the naysayers wrong; and themselves right. ​ In 1993, Dragila set out to learn how to master pole vaulting -- a sport that that USA Today once called the “3rd Hardest Thing To Do In Sports” amid skepticism and with few track meets that would even permit her to compete. Within 7 years, she was standing on a Gold Medal Stand in front of 115,000 fans in Sydney, Australia as Olympic Champion.

Dragila would go on to break the World Record 10 times and win 4 World Championships. Off the runway, she became the face of the women's movement in athletics as she appeared on everything from Wheaties boxes to Super Bowl Commercials.

Dragila is a proven businesswoman in her own right. She is the owner of an International Elite Training Center in Boise, Idaho; she is an Olympic-level professional trainer for post-collegiate athletes; she is the founder of Stacy Dragila Elite Pole Vault Camps; and she is in demand as a corporate and motivational speaker on topics such as “Cultivating Confidence,” “The First Step to Success Is to Embrace Failure,” and “Girls Aren’t Strong Enough or Fast Enough.”