Cunningham targets World Indoor, Olympics

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Vashti Cunningham of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nev., has set her sights on the 2016 Rio Games this summer. 

The senior opened her 2016 competitive schedule Friday by jumping 6-4.75 at the University of New Mexico and edged Olympian Chaunte Lowe by getting there with fewer misses. 

Cunningham said Monday she went into the meet expecting that she could clear 6-3. Even at that height, she would have matched the high school indoor national record set in 1984 by Lisa Bernhagen of Wood River, Idaho.

Instead, she broke that record by nearly two inches and secured an Olympic 'A' standard. 

And while her intentions for 2016 have not always been well known, the Pan Am Junior champion confirmed in an e-mail to DyeStat that she was hoping to make the Olympic team.

"My goal is to make it (onto) the Olympic team this summer," Cunningham said. "That's what I've been working toward. God's will be done, I'll make the team."

Cunningham's brother, Randall, has jumped 7-5 this season and is an NCAA championship contender for USC.

After setting the national high school outdoor record in April, Vashti Cunningham cleared 6-5 outdoors last summer in Canada, the highest mark by an American woman and tied for ninth in the world in 2015. 

There was a time early in the fall when Cunningham thought she might play club volleyball in the first months of 2016, but Monday she wrote that she was pointed toward the U.S. Indoor Championships in Portland, Ore., and possibly the World Indoor Championships, which are also in Portland. 

The U.S. Championships are March 11-12 at the Oregon Convention Center. 

Cunningham will bring a world of talent, and confidence, into the meet as she tries to make her first U.S. senior national team. Cunningham's record clearance Friday is equal to the No. 3 indoor mark in the world this year.

"Before going in (last Friday) my dad asked me what I wanted to jump," Cunningham wrote. "I said '6-3.' Not trying to set my goal too high and not trying to set it too low. (It) did build my confidence a lot to go over 6-4 this early."