Local mother prepares to support her daughter who will compete in pole vaulting in 2024 Olympics

A Westmoreland County woman is set to go for the gold. Hempfield’s Bridget Williams starts her quest on the pole vault next week in Paris.

>>> Ones to watch: Bridget Williams

Willams was a standout at Hempfield High School and at the University of Virginia. Her mother, Dara Guy, could not wait to show Channel 11′s Jennifer Tomazic all the awards and medals her daughter has won over the years. She said she’ll have to make more room now that her daughter is an Olympian.

“I always thought these are just elite athletes. I’m never going to meet one, and here I have one at my own front door, my daughter. I’m very very excited,” Guy said.

Most people know Bridget as Bridget Guy. But she since has married fellow UVA Track & Field athlete James Williams. He competed in the throwing events. The two now live in Blacksburg, where Williams is a volunteer assistant coach at Virginia Tech University and a part-time administrator at her church.

Williams made it to the 2024 Olympic games by taking first during the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon in July.

“I feel like it hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” Guy said.

Williams cleared the bar on the first try on all five of her jumps.

“She just kept getting better and better. She kept getting her form better, and she kept getting closer and closer to her goal of going to Paris,” Guy said.

Guy told Tomazic her daughter jumps over 15 feet high to clear the bar. It sounds scary, but that’s the part her daughter likes about pole vaulting.

“It’s daring. You run as fast as you can toward this big huge mat and you plant your pole and it flings you in the air,” Guy explained.

Although Williams now lives in Virginia, she’s very close to her family at home and feels Greensburg and Western Pennsylvania are always home and the place she comes back to.

“I live in Pittsburgh. I love sharing it with people who have never been to Pittsburgh,” Williams said. “I would not be the person i am today without my community and without all of those people who have helped me.

Guy will not be able to travel to Paris to see her daughter compete, but she has organized a watch party on the day her daughter competes.

“My daughter is just everything to me,” Guy said.

“I’m super grateful and thankful for everything that my Mom has done for me from being a kid to now, she sacrificed a lot,” Williams said.

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