The Drake Relays return to Des Moines this Wednesday through Saturday with what organisers are unreservedly billing as the greatest pole vault field in the meet's 117-year history. All four Americans who have cleared above 4.90 metres or 6 metres respectively in the current cycle are on the entry list: world indoor silver medallist and two-time Olympic champion Katie Moon, long-time rival Sandi Morris, former American record holder Sam Kendricks and current American record holder KC Lightfoot. Between them the four have won six global medals, set two American records and produced four of the ten highest vaults in history — and all four will be on the same runway on Saturday afternoon at Drake Stadium.
The timing is unusual. Drake traditionally attracts its biggest names in its showpiece 'street vault' format on the pedestrian mall in downtown Des Moines, but the stadium competition has historically been a rung below the Diamond League tier. This year the new Wanda Diamond League-linked points structure, combined with Drake's decision to lift total prize money in the vaults to $50,000 per event, has pulled the elite names back onto campus. 'We've had Katie and KC compete downtown,' meet director Blake Boldon told the Cedar Rapids Gazette at Monday's press conference, 'but all four together on the stadium runway at the same session — this is the first time.'
Moon has not vaulted indoors since February, where her 4.83m for world indoor silver in Toruń was the third-best indoor mark of her career. Morris, who missed the 2025 season after a foot injury, returned at altitude in Chula Vista last month with a confidence-building 4.72m and said at the press conference that the Drake runway 'feels like the one that's always brought out my best'. On the men's side, Kendricks — who at 33 has been quietly building through the early outdoor season — cleared 5.95m at the Texas Relays three weeks ago, while Lightfoot's 6.00m in the Doha qualifying circuit on 5 April was the first American six-metre outdoor vault of 2026.
The rest of the meet's elite programme reflects a similar scale-up. Two-time Olympic medallist and triple-jump gold medallist Thea Lafond, representing Dominica, headlines the Olympic Development triple jump. American 1,000m indoor record holder Addy Wiley will double in the stadium mile and the downtown road mile, with the latter likely to showcase her closing speed against a fast-improving field led by Emily Mackay. The women's 400m hurdles, one of Drake's traditional highlights, will feature 2024 Olympic champion Shamier Little in her first home race of the year against Nebraska-based NCAA champion Akala Garrett. In the field the women's javelin features 2024 Olympic bronze medallist Jie Zhao against U20 world champion Jiale Zhang.
The distance component of the meet has already received its own preview on these pages, but the pole vault is the Drake that the rest of the athletics world is watching. A full set of four heavyweights on the same bar, with world championship qualifying already underway for the Asian summer season, is the sort of opening a major US meet does not get every year — or even every four years. Expect an early bar at 5.70m on the men's side and 4.65m on the women's, television windows on NBC Sports and Peacock, and the first meaningful clue as to whether the 2026 outdoor season will belong to Lightfoot or Kendricks, Moon or Morris. The answer, pleasingly, will come out of Des Moines.