Nicole Krutilová

Pole Vaulter | Czech Republic | SK Jeseniova / AK Škoda Plzeň | Born: February 10, 2007

The Young Vaulter from Prague with a Plzeň Personal Best

Nicole Krutilová is 19 years old, and she has already competed at a World Athletics U20 Championship, a European Athletics U18 Championship, and a European Athletics U20 Championship — all before most athletes her age have cleared the height that she now considers routine. Born on February 10, 2007 in the Czech Republic, she is one of the most promising young pole vaulters in European athletics, the holder of a personal best of 4.37 metres, and a competitor who has established herself as a recognisable face in the Czech youth athletics programme while the country’s senior vaulter, Amálie Švábíková, continues to dominate at the elite tier.

The trajectory is real and still ascending. Krutilová entered senior-comparable competition as a 14- and 15-year-old and has spent the years since steadily adding centimetres to her personal best while accumulating international experience that athletes of her generation will spend their senior years drawing on. She is, as of the beginning of 2026, ranked approximately #121 in the world in the women’s pole vault — a number that will keep moving.

Origins and Early Athletic Life

Nicole Krutilová is based in Prague, where she trains with SK Jeseniova — a Prague-based athletics club where her early formation as an athlete took place. The Czech Olympic Committee’s profile for her lists SK Jeseniova as her club and confirms her regional affiliation with the capital’s athletics structure.

Her World Athletics competition history shows a breadth of events from her youth years that speaks to the multi-discipline approach common in Czech youth athletics: pole vault is the headline event, but her profile also lists triple jump, shot put (3kg), 100 metres hurdles (76.2cm barriers — the youth/junior height), 100 metres flat, 200 metres, and 800 metres. Her high jump personal best of 1.70 metres, set at a meet in Znojmo in September 2022, is also on record. This was Krutilová at 15, competing across disciplines — the kind of well-rounded athletic development that Czech youth coaching has long valued and that often produces vaulters with the sprint mechanics and coordination to handle the technical demands of the pole vault at advanced levels.

The relay connection is also significant: her 4×100 metres personal best of 47.39 seconds was set at Ostrava’s Mestský Stadion on June 15, 2024, representing her contribution to a Czech junior relay squad at what is one of the country’s most prestigious athletics venues. Her 4×200 metres relay indoor mark of 1:43.25, set at the Atletická hala in Ostrava on February 25, 2024, further illustrates the sprint base that underpins her vaulting.

The Czech Pole Vault Tradition — and What It Means to be Part of It

The Czech Republic has a genuine tradition in women’s pole vault. Amálie Švábíková — herself a World Athletics U20 champion (2018) and multiple-time Czech record holder — is the country’s standard-bearer in the event. Krutilová grew up in a Czech athletics environment where a young woman clearing 4.50 metres and competing with the world’s best is not an abstract concept but a concrete reality.

At the 2025 European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, Krutilová and Švábíková were both on the Czech team, photographed embracing after the women’s pole vault final. That image — captured by Getty Images on August 10, 2025 — captures something real about the Czech vaulting environment: two generations of the same national tradition, competing at the same continental championship together.

The Czech Athletics Federation (ČAS) has listed her achievements in the national database. Her Czech athletics registration records her 2024 achievement at the European U17 Championships as a fourth-place finish — the entry reads “ME17-tyč/4.” in the federation’s abbreviated notation — confirming she came within one placing of a continental medal at the U17 level.

Growing Up on the Track: The National Relay Record

One of the more telling details in Nicole Krutilová’s early career comes not from her individual vault competitions but from a relay record announcement preserved by the Prague Athletics Association. Records from November 2022, when she was 15 years old, show that Krutilová was part of a 4×60 metres relay squad — alongside Barbora Kličková (Spartak Praha 4), Alžběta Machová (TJ Dukla Praha), and Silvie Daněčková (USK Praha) — that set a national record in the older girls’ category at the Winter Olympic Games for Children and Youth (LODM). The record was recognised and announced at the end-of-year celebration of Prague’s young athletes, where the relay team was specifically commended.

This is the kind of domestic detail that rarely reaches international coverage but tells an important story: Krutilová, at 15, was already competitive enough in flat sprinting to be included in a national record relay. Her place alongside athletes from Dukla Praha and USK Praha — two of the country’s most prestigious and historically successful athletics clubs — confirmed she was operating at the top level of Czech youth athletics across multiple disciplines, not just in the vault.

2022: The Slovenian ODM Medal

The Czech Olympic Committee profile for Nicole Krutilová records a medal from the 2022 Summer Olympic Games for Children and Youth (Olympiáda dětí a mládeže, ODM). The entry shows one gold and two silver medals from the 2022 summer ODM — a national youth multi-sport competition that serves as one of the most important developmental showcases in the Czech Republic for young athletes. Her ODM profile also lists high jump and shot put among her early competitive disciplines, alongside the 4x60m relay, giving a picture of a genuinely multi-sport talent in her early competitive years.

The Vault Progression: From 3.95 to 4.37

The clearest indicator of Krutilová’s trajectory is the way her pole vault marks have moved. Czech Athletics internal records show that she cleared 3.95 metres in qualification at the 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima as a 17-year-old — a performance described by Czech Television’s sports coverage as a “surprising” finalist qualification, given that she entered the competition as one of the younger athletes in the field. In the final, she cleared 4.05 metres to finish seventh.

By the time the European U18 Championships came around in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia in July 2024, she cleared 4.15 metres in the final — a personal best at the time, and a result that left her fourth on countback behind Norway’s Embla Matilde Njerve and Sweden’s Beate Pott (who took silver and bronze respectively) and below gold medallist Anastasia Boumpoulidi of Greece, who won with 4.20 metres. The European Athletics report on the day confirmed that all four of the top finishers had set personal bests at 4.15m, but that when the bar went to 4.20m, only Boumpoulidi cleared it. Fourth at a European championship by a single failed attempt at 5 centimetres more is a thin margin — and a motivating one.

Then came 2025. On July 25, 2025, competing at the Atletický stadion města Plzně — the athletics stadium in Plzeň, Bohemia — Nicole Krutilová vaulted 4.37 metres. It is her current personal best and the mark she carried into the 2025 European U20 Championships in Tampere as the fifth-highest season’s best in the field, behind the Dutch leader Elise de Jong (4.50), Marijn Kieft (4.47), Sweden’s Kajsa Roth (4.42), and Greece’s Evgenia-Maria Panagiotou (4.38). At Tampere in August 2025, she finished eighth in the final — a result that reflects a competitive final field rather than a retreat in form, and that World Athletics records as her second major international championship appearance.

The Lima World U20 Championship: A 17-Year-Old on the Global Stage

The 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships, held in Lima, Peru, in late August, brought Nicole Krutilová to a genuinely global stage for the first time. The Czech junior team was notable for its depth — Lurdes Gloria Manuel won the 400 metres gold, Martina Mazurová took silver in the shot put, and Adéla Tkáčová won bronze in the heptathlon — meaning the Czech delegation was one of the more decorated at the championships. Against that backdrop, Krutilová’s seventh place in the women’s pole vault final (clearing 4.05 metres in the final, having qualified with 4.10 metres in the qualification round) represented a solid debut at that level.

Czech Television’s athletics correspondent described her Lima final appearance as “surprising” for a dorostenka — the Czech term for athletes in the 16-17 age bracket, the youngest eligible age group within the U20 category. To compete in a World U20 final as a 17-year-old is genuinely unusual; most athletes at that championship are 18, 19, or recently turned 20. That Krutilová did so without being among the pre-competition favourites makes the result more impressive, not less.

The Czech Athletics Federation’s official summary of the Lima championships lists her 7th place result directly: “7. Nicole Krutilová (tyč) 405 f, 410 q” — confirming she cleared 4.05m in the final and 4.10m in qualification.

The Banská Bystrica Near-Miss: July 2024

Between the Lima championship in August and the European U18 Championship in Banská Bystrica in July 2024, Krutilová had a competition that came very close to delivering her first continental medal. The European Athletics report on the U18 pole vault final described the scene precisely: at 4.15 metres, four athletes set personal bests — Boumpoulidi, Njerve, Pott, and Krutilová all cleared the height. At 4.20 metres, only the Greek champion made it. Silver, bronze, and fourth place were decided on the countback of their performances at previous heights. Krutilová missed the medal by tie-breaking procedures.

These are the competitions that define athletes — not the ones where the result comes easily, but the ones where the difference between a medal and a near-miss is a single bar at a single height. Krutilová left Banská Bystrica with a personal best and a lesson in what championship pole vault finals require.

Tampere 2025: The European U20 Championships and a Czech Double

The European Athletics U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, in August 2025, presented Krutilová with her deepest competition to date. She entered with the fifth-best seasonal mark in the field and finished eighth — a result that reflects the extraordinary depth of European U20 women’s pole vault in 2025 rather than any failure on her part. The final field included the Dutch pair of De Jong (4.50) and Kieft (4.47), both significantly ahead of anyone else in Europe that season.

The photograph that Getty Images took at Tampere — Krutilová and Švábíková embracing after the final — has a particular quality to it. These are two Czech vaulters who had just competed together in the same European championship final, one a 2007-born up-and-comer and the other a 2006-born teammate with a stronger season’s mark. Both made the final. Both represented the Czech Republic in what is now a genuinely strong tradition in their discipline.

The Czech nomination list for the European U17 Championships in 2024 also included Krutilová in the pole vault, confirming her continuous presence in Czech national youth athletics selection across the age boundary transition from U17 to U20.

What the Numbers Show

The World Athletics profile for Nicole Krutilová (code: 14953994) provides the following documented marks and competition history, as of early 2026:

• Pole Vault (personal best): 4.37 metres — July 25, 2025, Atletický stadion města Plzně, Plzeň
• 4×100 Metres Relay: 47.39 — June 15, 2024, Ostrava
• 4×200 Metres Relay (indoor): 1:43.25 — February 25, 2024, Ostrava (indoor)
• High Jump: 1.70 — September 24, 2022, Znojmo
• 100 Metres: 12.34 (wind-aided) — May 25, 2024
• Current World Ranking: approximately #121 (women’s pole vault), early 2026
• World Athletics honours: “1x In top 8 at World U20 Championships”

The documentation across multiple events — hurdles, relay, high jump, shot put, and pole vault — reflects a genuine multi-discipline background. The pole vault personal best progression is the key line: from 3.95m in qualification at Lima 2024 (as a 17-year-old) to 4.37m in Plzeň in 2025 represents a 42-centimetre improvement in approximately one year of competitive development. In pole vault terms, that is a substantial jump.

The Czech Athletics Infrastructure Behind Her Development

Nicole Krutilová’s development has taken place within the Czech athletics system that has produced Švábíková, Tomáš Staněk, and a generation of strong junior athletes across multiple events. The Czech Athletics Federation’s youth structures — including the Sportovní střediska (sports centres), the Vrcholové sportovní centrum mládeže (elite youth sports centres), and the national youth selection system — are designed specifically to identify and develop athletes like Krutilová from an early age and provide them with international competitive experience before they age into the senior ranks.

Her club, SK Jeseniova, is a Prague-based athletics organisation that operates in the Prague Athletics Association (Pražský atletický svaz, PAS) structure. Prague’s athletics network is one of the most competitive in the country, with clubs including USK Praha, Dukla Praha, and Spartak Praha producing national-level athletes year after year. The fact that she was named alongside athletes from those larger, more historically prominent clubs in the 2022 relay record announcement confirms that SK Jeseniova, despite being a smaller club, is training athletes of national standing.

Her personal best of 4.37 metres was set at the stadium in Plzeň — a city with its own deep athletics tradition through AK Škoda Plzeň, one of the most successful clubs in Czech athletics history. Competition at that venue, against Czech domestic rivals, represents exactly the kind of environment where personal bests in the 4.30-4.50 metre range are achievable for a developing vaulter with the right preparation.

Social Media

Nicole Krutilová is active on Instagram under the handle @nicolekrutilova, where her profile carries the description “pole vault Czech Republic 🇨🇿.” The account has approximately 4,600 followers and around 35 posts — a presence consistent with an emerging young athlete who uses the platform primarily for competition and training content. She is listed on the World Athletics database under her full name (Nicole KRUTILOVÁ) with athlete code 14953994.

No formal commercial sponsorships have been publicly confirmed as of early 2026, which is typical for athletes of her age and career stage within the Czech athletics system. Youth athletes in the Czech Republic are generally supported through federation structures and club programmes rather than personal sponsorship arrangements.

Looking at 2026 and Beyond

Nicole Krutilová turns 19 in February 2026. She is still eligible for the U20 category through the 2026 season, which means the World Athletics U20 Championships in Eugene, Oregon — scheduled for August 2026 — represent an opportunity to improve on her Lima 2024 result. She enters 2026 as an established U20 international competitor with a 4.37-metre personal best, a fourth-place European U18 result on countback, an eighth-place European U20 final appearance, and a seventh-place World U20 final appearance to her name.

The senior horizon is also becoming visible. At 4.37 metres, she is not yet challenging the top end of Czech senior pole vault — Švábíková has cleared well above 4.70 metres, and the Czech senior record stands higher still — but the trajectory from her youth marks to her current personal best shows a vaulter who is improving consistently with experience. The years from 19 to 24 are when most elite vaulters make their largest improvements, refining the technical elements that are simultaneously the most difficult and the most rewarding to master.

The pole vault requires strength, gymnastic coordination, sprint speed, and technical precision in a sequence that unfolds over a fraction of a second. Athletes who develop each of those components through youth competition — and who accumulate international championship experience while still young — tend to be the ones who make the biggest breakthroughs in their early twenties. Krutilová has been doing exactly that work: competing at European and World level since she was 17, learning what championship finals require, and building the physical and technical foundation that will shape the next phase of her career.

The Czech pole vault tradition has a next generation. Nicole Krutilová is part of it.

Born: February 10, 2007 | Club: SK Jeseniova (Prague) | Country: Czech Republic | Event: Pole Vault | PB: 4.37m (July 25, 2025, Plzeň) | World Athletics ID: 14953994 | Current World Ranking: ~#121 (women’s pole vault) | Instagram: @nicolekrutilova | 2024 World U20 Championships, Lima: 7th (4.05m) | 2024 European U18 Championships, Banská Bystrica: 4th (4.15m) | 2025 European U20 Championships, Tampere: 8th | 2022 LODM national relay record (4x60m)