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Reaching New Heights: The Definitive Profile of Rafaela Stinghen Neri, Brazil’s Rising Pole Vault Star

Jaraguá do Sul is not a city that many athletics fans outside Santa Catarina could locate on a map. Tucked into the northeastern corner of one of Brazil’s most southern states, it is an industrial city of roughly 200,000 people whose economy runs on textile manufacturing and machine engineering — the kind of place where German and Italian immigrant surnames fill the phone book and work ethic is practically written into the city’s founding charter. It is perhaps fitting, then, that one of its brightest young athletic talents competes in one of track and field’s most demanding and technically complex events. Rafaela Stinghen Neri is a pole vaulter — patient, technical, explosive, and relentlessly consistent — and in a short competitive career, she has already written her name into the record books of Brazilian youth athletics and on the continental stage.

Growing Up in Jaraguá do Sul: An Athletic City

Rafaela Stinghen Neri is a product of Jaraguá do Sul’s Associação Prática de Atletismo (APA), the city’s athletics association that operates under the umbrella of the Secretaria de Cultura, Esporte e Lazer (SECEL) — a partnership between the athletic community and the local government that has made Jaraguá do Sul one of the more quietly impressive athletics development hubs in Santa Catarina. The APA/SECEL program trains athletes across a wide range of events and has built a reputation for producing quality competitors in field events in particular, including a notable tradition in the pole vault that predates Rafaela.

The Stinghen Neri family appears to be a genuinely athletic household. While detailed biographical information about Rafaela’s early years is not extensively documented in public sources, the family’s presence in Jaraguá do Sul’s sports scene is evident: her younger sister Helena Stinghen Neri has also emerged as a competitive sprinter and hurdler, earning recognition at the South American School Games level in Asunción, Paraguay, and winning the 80 meters hurdles title at the Santa Catarina Sub-16 State Championships. The sibling athletic lineage suggests a family environment that nurtures sport — not unusual in a city where the local government formally recognizes athletic achievement through its Prêmio Destaque Desportivo and where community investment in sport is taken seriously.

Her coaches at APA/SECEL are the brothers Ezequiel Emerson Wagner and Cleberson Jorge Wagner — a coaching tandem that has been called up to serve in the technical staff of Brazil’s national athletics team at international competitions. Their presence at the club level has been instrumental in the development of several athletes who have gone on to represent Brazil in continental championships. For Rafaela, their guidance has been a critical part of her development from a promising local competitor into a genuine national and international contender.

Early Athletic Career: The Emerging Vaulter

By 2022, while still in the early stages of her competitive development, Rafaela was already showing the kind of multi-event versatility that characterizes many young field athletes in Brazil’s club system. Contemporary accounts place her competing for APA/SECEL in the pole vault as her primary event, while also contributing to the club in relay events — a not uncommon arrangement in club-level Brazilian athletics, where athletes’ speed and athleticism make them useful contributors across multiple disciplines. Her participation in the 4×100 relay alongside teammates during the Joguinhos Abertos de Santa Catarina (Santa Catarina Open Games, or Joguinhos, a regional multi-sport competition) is documented from that period, reflecting her broader athletic capabilities beyond the pole vault pit.

The Joguinhos Abertos de Santa Catarina is a competition with significant meaning in the state. Unlike the larger JASC (Jogos Abertos de Santa Catarina), which is an older, more established competition, the Joguinhos specifically targets younger athletes and serves as an important development platform. Rafaela’s performances in the pole vault at the Joguinhos — where she ultimately became champion — represent a meaningful competitive stepping stone on her path toward regional and national prominence.

The 2024 Breakthrough Season: State Titles and National Recognition

The 2024 season began to crystallize what Rafaela Stinghen Neri was capable of. At the Santa Catarina State Athletics Championship, she claimed the pole vault title — with a record-setting mark — establishing herself clearly as the best in her age class within her home state. She also won the 100 meters hurdles and contributed to the championship-winning 4×100 relay team, underscoring the all-around athleticism that underpins her success as a vaulter. Sprint speed, hurdling agility, and the explosive power required to excel in those events are precisely the physical qualities that translate into pole vault performance, and Rafaela was demonstrating them across multiple disciplines simultaneously.

Her performances that season earned her recognition at Jaraguá do Sul’s first Prêmio Destaque Desportivo ceremony in 2025 — an award established by the city’s legislative chamber in 2025 to formally honor athletes and coaches whose achievements brought distinction to the municipality in the prior calendar year. The citation for Rafaela at that first ceremony noted that she was “campeã e recordista no salto com vara, nos 100m com barreiras e no revezamento 4x100m” at the State Athletics Championships, that she won the pole vault at the Joguinhos Abertos de Santa Catarina, and that she finished third in the same event at the JASC — placing her at the highest levels of competition in the state’s athletic calendar while still competing in youth categories. That consistent podium presence across different competitions and formats was a hallmark of her 2024 season.

A Historic 2025 Season: Titles Across Three Levels

If 2024 was a breakthrough, 2025 was the year Rafaela Stinghen Neri truly announced herself on the national and international stages. The season unfolded across multiple competitions and delivered results that would become the foundation of her growing reputation.

Early in the year, she competed at the Troféu Adhemar Ferreira da Silva in Bragança Paulista, São Paulo — one of Brazil’s significant athletics events that draws competitors from across the country. In the pole vault she posted a mark of 3.61 meters, placing her among the national field. It was a performance that showed she could compete against Brazil’s best, even as she continued to develop.

Later, at the 44th Troféu Brasil Interclubes in São Paulo — the largest club athletics competition in Latin America, with 854 athletes from 148 clubs across the country — she placed 10th in the pole vault with 3.61 meters while still competing against senior athletes from the entire country. The depth and prestige of that competition makes any performance within the top 10 meaningful for a young athlete still in youth categories.

The Santa Catarina State Championships in 2025 brought more silverware. Competing at the adult level, she placed second in the pole vault with 3.80 meters — a performance that placed her among the state’s senior elite vaulters and demonstrated that her abilities were not merely relative to her age group.

Then came the events that defined her 2025 season and permanently elevated her profile.

At the Campeonato Brasileiro Interclubes Sub-20 (Brazilian U20 Clubs Championship), held in Recife, Pernambuco, Rafaela won the pole vault title with a mark of 3.84 meters — and in doing so, set the Brazilian U20 interclub record in the event. This was not merely a national youth title; it was a landmark result that placed her name in the record books of Brazilian athletics. The OCP News report from Jaraguá do Sul described it as one of the best performances in the history of APA/SECEL at a national competition, with the coaching staff calling it a historic moment for the city. The Brazilian national federation recognized the result through its official communications, listing Rafaela alongside the other Brazilian champions at that championship.

At the Santa Catarina State Sub-20 Championship, she was again champion and set the state record in the pole vault — a double of domestic records that reflected how thoroughly she had outgrown the competition within her home state in her age category.

She also won the Joguinhos Abertos de Santa Catarina title in the pole vault that year, completing a sweep of the available regional competitive honors in her event.

The International Stage: Pan-American U20 and South American U20 Championships

The autumn of 2025 brought two major international competitions in quick succession, and Rafaela Stinghen Neri was Brazil’s representative in the women’s pole vault at both.

First came the Pan-American U20 Athletics Championship, held in Bogotá, Colombia in early October 2025. This was a continental showdown among the best under-20 athletes in the Americas, and Rafaela arrived as the strongest Brazilian entry in her event. She cleared 3.80 meters to take the silver medal — behind Colombia’s Luna Pabón, who won gold at 3.90 meters, but ahead of Colombia’s María Gómez, who also cleared 3.80 but was awarded bronze based on countback. The silver was a meaningful result, both for Rafaela personally and for the Brazilian athletics delegation: along with her performance, Brazil collected six gold and five silver medals at the championship, dominating the overall medal count. Her silver was part of that historic Brazilian sweep.

Three weeks later, at the South American U20 Athletics Championship in Lima, Peru from October 31 to November 2, 2025, she again earned a silver medal in the pole vault. The South American championship brought together the best under-20 athletes from across the continent, and Brazil — with Rafaela as part of the delegation that included her teammates from APA/SECEL — went on to win the overall championship title. The Brazilian city of Jaraguá do Sul contributed three medal-winning performances to that championship result, with Rafaela’s silver alongside Vinícius de Brito’s gold in the 110 meters hurdles and Kauan Lima Batista’s bronze in the men’s pole vault. When the team returned, the Jaraguá do Sul city council passed a formal motion of congratulations to the athletes and coaches, recognizing their contribution to Brazil’s continental title.

The twin silvers at the Pan-American and South American championships placed Rafaela Stinghen Neri in remarkable company. Fewer than a handful of Santa Catarina athletes across all disciplines have posted international age-group podium results in a single season; to do it twice in a month is genuinely exceptional for a young competitor still in her late teenage years.

A Family of Champions

The Stinghen Neri household appears to have produced more than one athletic talent. Beyond Rafaela’s own achievements, her younger sister Helena Stinghen Neri — who competed for EMEB Cristina Marcatto school in Jaraguá do Sul — turned heads at the South American School Games in Asunción, Paraguay, finishing third in the 80 meters hurdles, winning the 5×80 integrated relay and the silver-series 80 meters event. Helena also won the 80 meters hurdles at the Santa Catarina Sub-16 State Championships in Timbó. Both sisters were recognized in Jaraguá do Sul’s formal athletic honors programs — Rafaela at the senior competition level, Helena in the school competition category — a rare double-family distinction that speaks to the athletic culture within their household.

A Year of Recognition: The Prêmio Destaque Desportivo 2026

In May 2026, the Jaraguá do Sul city council held its second annual Prêmio Destaque Desportivo ceremony at the Grande Teatro da SCAR, honoring athletes and coaches who had distinguished themselves in 2025 competition. Rafaela Stinghen Neri was formally recognized with a Menção Honrosa — a distinction above the standard category medal system, reserved for athletes whose achievements were considered to exceed normal categorical comparisons. The citation in the official municipality communications described her as having earned “pódio ou pontuação em todas as competições das quais participou” (podium or scoring finish in every competition she entered) throughout 2025, and specifically noted the Brazilian interclub record as a landmark achievement. She was recognized alongside Olympian Simone Ponte Ferraz and other luminaries of Jaraguá do Sul sport — a meaningful placement in the pantheon of the city’s athletic history.

The award ceremony was a public affirmation of something that the Brazilian athletics community had already come to understand through competition results: Rafaela Stinghen Neri had arrived as a force in Brazilian youth pole vault.

The World Athletics Profile and Performance Arc

As of mid-2026, Rafaela Stinghen Neri does not yet have an established World Athletics individual competition code, as she has competed primarily within the continental youth championships circuit rather than open senior international meets. Her marks in the pole vault — progressing from sub-3.80 meter performances in earlier years to the 3.84 meter Brazilian interclub record in 2025 and a 3.90 clearance mark noted in her most recent senior competition appearances — represent a solid foundation for the next phase of her athletic development. In the context of South American women’s pole vault, these marks place her as one of the more promising young vaulters in the continent’s pipeline.

Her versatility across events — demonstrated by her ability to contribute in the 100 meters hurdles and sprint relays while maintaining pole vault as her primary focus — suggests an athleticism that her coaches can build upon as she transitions from youth categories into senior competition. The pole vault rewards patience and technical refinement over time, and Brazilian women’s pole vault has produced international competitors from this development pathway before.

The APA/SECEL Program and Its Role in Her Development

It is worth understanding the environment that has shaped Rafaela Stinghen Neri as an athlete, because it is genuinely distinctive. The APA/SECEL program in Jaraguá do Sul operates with the support of the municipal government through the Bolsa Desportiva — a sports scholarship program established in 2017 that provides financial support to competing athletes and has been credited with enabling many of the city’s athletic achievements in the years since. The program does not target a single sport or a single event group; it supports athletes across a wide competitive range, which has created a kind of critical mass of talent in Jaraguá do Sul that is unusual for a city of its size.

The Wagner brothers — Ezequiel and Cleberson — have been the technical pillars of APA/SECEL’s pole vault program in particular. Their 2025 season saw them called up as part of the technical commission of the Brazilian national athletics team for both the Pan-American U20 and South American U20 championships — meaning that the coaches who trained Rafaela also traveled to Bogotá and Lima as part of Brazil’s official delegation. That kind of integration between club coaching and national federation support is a measure of how seriously the Brazilian athletics confederation has taken the work being done in Jaraguá do Sul.

Looking Ahead

Rafaela Stinghen Neri completed the 2025 season as the Brazilian U20 interclub record holder, a two-time international youth silver medalist, and one of the most decorated young athletes in her city’s sporting history. She was also seen competing at senior level in the National Interclubes at a 3.90 meter attempt — a number that, if she clears it consistently in 2026 and beyond, would represent meaningful progress toward the kind of marks that earn international senior selection.

The next milestones on her horizon include the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships in Eugene, Oregon — the qualification window for which opened in October 2025 and runs through mid-2026. Jaraguá do Sul’s athletics program has been specifically noted by the Brazilian confederation as one it wants to partner with heading into 2026, a signal that the national federation sees Rafaela and her teammates as part of Brazil’s plans for that competition.

For a young woman still in her late teens, the accumulation of titles, records, and continental medals that Rafaela Stinghen Neri has assembled is genuinely impressive. Brazilian women’s pole vault has had its stars — the event at the senior level in Brazil is intensely competitive — and the pipeline of talent coming through the country’s youth system now includes a vaulter from a small industrial city in Santa Catarina who has proven she belongs on the continental stage. The bar keeps going up. So does Rafaela.

Career Highlights at a Glance

• Full name: Rafaela Stinghen Neri
• Hometown: Jaraguá do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil
• Primary event: Pole Vault
• Secondary events: 100m Hurdles, Sprint Relays
• Club: Associação Prática de Atletismo / SECEL (APA/SECEL), Jaraguá do Sul
• Coaches: Ezequiel Emerson Wagner and Cleberson Jorge Wagner

Career Personal Best (documented)

Selected Competitive Record

Awards and Honors

• Prêmio Destaque Desportivo 2025 (Jaraguá do Sul City Council) — recognized for state records and titles in 2024
• Prêmio Destaque Desportivo 2026 (Jaraguá do Sul City Council) — Menção Honrosa, recognized for podium finishes in all competitions entered and Brazilian interclub record in 2025