Las Vegas’ Vashti Cunningham makes history, seizes spot on Rio Olympic team

EUGENE, Ore. — The news conference ended late Sunday afternoon and three female Olympic high jumpers were asked to pose for a picture.

Chaunte Lowe stood to the left, a gold medal draped from the neck of the 32-year-old and mother of three.

Inika McPherson, 29 and a former U.S. indoor champion, was on the right, smiling at her bronze award.

In the middle was an 18-year old who just a few months ago was attending her senior prom and is now one of the bright, new, shining faces of American track and field, a rise as sudden as it has been spectacular.

But there wasn’t a hint of silver in sight.

Someone asked Vashti Cunningham where her medal was.

“I gave it to my dad,” she said.

Whether it was the innocence of not having experienced such a historic moment and understanding post-finals protocol at a U.S. Track and Field Trials, or a way to make a statement about not being satisfied with second place, Cunningham sent a message to both her new American teammates and competitors abroad: This is just the beginning.

Two months after deciding to forgo jumping in college and instead turning professional by signing with Nike, the Bishop Gorman graduate and daughter of former UNLV and NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham qualified for the Rio Olympics next month.

She is the youngest female American track athlete to make the Olympics since Monique Henderson in 2000 and, barring any setbacks or injuries or other unforeseen issues, will be the youngest to compete at the Games in four decades.

A journey that began when Cunningham’s father first noticed her potential as a 9-year-old messing around at the high jump bar has seen her realize a dream so few at her age ever have or will.

“I’m so appreciative just to be going to the Olympics,” she said. “I’m much more thankful about that than disappointed about finishing second (at trials). At the same time, I still wanted to win. I always want to win.”

She doesn’t look at earning an Olympic berth as any sort of vindication for the decision to bypass college jumping, but merely as the continuation of a journey based as much on faith as skill. Her father is also her coach and the family’s spiritual guide as founder and pastor for Remnant Ministries.

In their minds, this is all the plan of a much higher being.

In the mind of Lowe, who made her fourth straight Olympic team, it absolutely has something to do with God-given talent.

“It’s amazing,” Lowe said. “I look back at myself and think, ‘Wow. When I was 18, I wasn’t thinking about the Olympics and wasn’t even a consideration for that.’ (Cunningham) is breaking barriers. She’s the Usain Bolt of the high jump. When he started out, he was doing things nobody ever had. That’s her. With all the years to come, there are great and amazing things ahead for her.”

Lowe made her own statement Sunday, one that will undoubtedly push Cunningham in the weeks preceding Rio to work harder than ever, to understand that this is a level of sport defined by strong, mature, seasoned, veteran women who during competition would rather smack her across the head with a horizontal bar than give an inch to any rising star.

In the end, Cunningham needed too many jumps to advance through the rounds and had nothing left when the bar was placed at 1.99 meters (6 feet, 6¼ inches). By then, the Olympic team had been set and 10 other finalists had bowed out (UNLV senior Kaycee Pilgrim was gone by the second round at 1.84 meters and finished 11th).

It was down to the two Nike pros for gold.

Cunningham missed on all three attempts at 1.99 while Lowe cleared it on her second jump. Then, perhaps just to remind her younger teammate that she has no intention of yet passing on the high jump torch, Lowe cleared 2.01 meters, best in the world this year.

“Chaunte told me that she worked so hard all year because of what I was doing,” Cunningham said. “Now, I have to use that same thinking about her as motivation for Rio. I need to get better in all areas.”

Russia has appealed its doping ban of its athletics team from the Olympics, but if it holds, the women’s high jump suddenly becomes both not nearly as good a field and yet one wide open for the taking.

No matter who she might oppose and from what nation, if she is to contend for a medal, Cunningham will need more of the grit and mental toughness she showed Sunday when missing her first two attempts at 1.95 meters.

Her spot on the team already secure, she appeared to lose focus.

Then, a man’s voice from the top of a stairwell just off the track offered these words: “Come on. Confidence. Don’t be satisfied!”

Cunningham looked to the man and nodded, went through her pre-jump routine of walking within feet of the bar and staring at it as a prizefighter might his opponent when given instructions from a referee, retreated to her starting position and sailed over the mark by three inches.

The man let out a loud cheer.

“I’m so happy for her,” Randall said as his daughter and new Olympic teammates prepared to take a victory lap around the track at famed Hayward Stadium while clutching miniature American flags. “God gave her great genes and she goes out there and fights and fights and fights. She’s feisty that way. She’s blessed. We want to win more than anything, but we have to keep the focus on the fact she’s 18 and having fun. She hasn’t near peaked yet. We haven’t even done any real Olympic training. We have stayed with youth training just to get her to this point.

“Now, we take the next step, the one needed for Rio.”

There’s that hidden message again.

This is just the beginning.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Twitter: @edgraney