Holly's on a high rise (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Holly's on a high rise

8:54am Friday 27th January 2012 in Athletics By Gary York

BLACKBURN Harriers pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale has catapulted herself ahead of some of Great Britain’s athletics greats by leaping to fourth in her sport’s all-time world rankings.

The 20-year-old Chorley-born star, a big medal hope for this year’s Olympic Games, made the leap in rankings after breaking her own UK record with a jump of 4.87m in France last week.

Of Great British athletes past and present, only three boast higher all-time rankings than Bleasdale – marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe, triple jumper Jonathan Edwards, also the world record holder in his discipline, and 800m legend and London Olympics supremo Sebastian Coe.

Like Bleasdale, Daley Thompson has the fourth-best performance of all-time, in the decathlon.

But the young Harrier sits on a loftier perch to some of Britain’s other famous athletes, such as Colin Jackson, Sally Gunnell, Linford Christie, and Kelly Holmes.

Her incredible all-time ranking owes in great part to the relative infancy of women’s pole vaulting.

It has only been a full-medal event at the Olympics since 2000.