20 Stunning Photos of Alysha Newman and One Incredible Story

Born June 29, 1994, in London, Ontario, and raised just down the road in Delaware, a small town that had no idea it was raising a future Olympic medalist. The eldest of four kids, she grew up surrounded by siblings Kris, Dylan, and Brianna in a family that lived and breathed sports. Friday nights weren’t quiet at the Newman house; they were spent at the local speedway, watching stock cars fly. That love of speed and risk never really left her.

Before pole vault, there was gymnastics. Alysha started at just 5 years old, and by 13 she was excelling on beam and vault. Then came the injury that changed everything, a fracture in her lower back vertebra that forced her to walk away from the sport completely. She spent over a year on the sidelines, trying ice hockey and diving, searching for what came next. Little did she know, the next chapter would take her further than gymnastics ever could.

A coach noticed her gymnastics background and pointed her toward something new: the pole vault. She was 16. She’d never held a pole in her life. Within a few years, she wasn’t just competing, she was breaking national records. Sometimes the sport that finds you by accident becomes the one you were always meant for.

Alysha became the first Canadian high school girl to ever clear 4 metres in the pole vault. At Mother Teresa Secondary School in London, Ontario, she was already rewriting the record books before she’d even graduated. No big training centers. No international coaches yet. Just raw talent and relentless work. The records would only get bigger from here.

She didn’t stop at one record. Alysha went on to set the Canadian youth and junior pole vault marks before she’d finished her teenage years. Most kids that age are worrying about prom. Alysha was rewriting national history. Her parents, Robert and Paula, were there for every single vault, believing in her long before the world did. That early belief became the foundation for everything that followed.

2013: Alysha took her talent to the NCAA, joining Eastern Michigan University. She didn’t waste any time, winning the Mid American Conference title in her very first season. It was just the beginning of a college career that would take her even further. Next stop: Miami.

In 2014, Alysha transferred to the University of Miami, following her coach Jerel Langley. On her very first vault as a Hurricane, she broke the school record. First jump. School record. She’d go on to become a six time NCAA Division I All American. She graduated in 2016 with a degree in exercise physiology and a minor in nutrition, brains to match the brawn.

2014 Commonwealth Games, Glasgow: a 20 year old Alysha won bronze with a vault of 3.80m. It was her first major international medal, and proof that she belonged on the world stage. The pressure was rising. So was she. This was only the warm up act.

2016: Rio de Janeiro. Alysha’s first Olympic Games. She vaulted 4.45m and finished 17th, a result that stung, but taught her more than any win could have. Every champion has a Games like this one. The difference is what you do next. She went back to work.

2018, Gold Coast Commonwealth Games: gold. Alysha cleared 4.75m, setting a new Commonwealth Games record in the process. The same year, a torn patellar tendon would cut her season short, a brutal reminder that this sport gives nothing for free. She rehabbed. She came back stronger.

2019 was the year Alysha rewrote her own record book, twice. She broke the Canadian record in February in Germany, then broke it again later that season, hitting 4.82m at the Diamond League meet in Zurich. That same season also brought her first ever Diamond League win, in Paris. Two record breaks, one Diamond League title, one historic year.

That 4.82m vault in Zurich ranked her among the top 20 pole vaulters of all time. Not just in Canada. Not just that season. In the entire history of the sport. A small town girl from Delaware, Ontario, standing among the greatest vaulters who’ve ever lived. The records kept falling, but the bigger goal, an Olympic medal, was still out there waiting.

Then came one of the hardest stretches of her career. In 2021, a fall in a hotel shower left her with a serious concussion. She competed at the delayed Tokyo Olympics anyway, honoring sponsor commitments, and failed to clear a single height. It was a gut punch of a result, and she said so honestly, that this sport “continues to break my heart.” But she didn’t walk away. She got back up.

2022 to 2023 tested her in every way possible. A heel fracture. A missed World Championships final. A devastating ankle injury just hours before a major competition. Each time, the same question: do you quit, or do you come back? Each time, Alysha came back. Coming back from injury that fast takes serious recovery work, here’s the gear that can help you train and bounce back too.

February 2024: Alysha broke her own Canadian record again, clearing 4.83m indoors. It came just months after recovering from a torn ankle ligament injury suffered before a major championship. The comeback was already writing itself. Paris was next, and this time everything was building toward something bigger.

Her third Olympic Games. After Rio’s heartbreak and Tokyo’s setback, this was the Games where it was all supposed to come together. August 7, 2024. Alysha Newman clears 4.85m. Bronze medal. A brand new Canadian record, set on the biggest stage in the world. It made her the first Canadian woman ever to medal in Olympic pole vault. Thirty years in the making. She called it her diploma.

Canada’s last Olympic pole vault medal before Alysha’s? 1912. Over a century earlier. That’s 112 years between Canadian pole vault medals, and Alysha ended the drought. She celebrated with a viral, unfiltered twerk on the podium that the whole world saw. Powerful. Feminine. Joyful. All at once, exactly the way she wanted to be seen.

In 2023, she made a move that surprised a lot of people: joining OnlyFans to share content entirely on her own terms. Critics had opinions. She didn’t care. For Alysha, it was about controlling her own image and brand, and refusing to let anyone tell her she had to choose between being an athlete and being feminine. It became one of the most talked about chapters of her career, on her terms, every step of the way.

Beyond the medals, Alysha’s building something bigger. She’s co leading the campaign for the Bolton High Performance Athletics Centre, Canada’s first privately funded, non profit, high performance track and field facility. Built alongside her longtime coach Doug Wood, on land donated in Caledon, Ontario, the centre will give the next generation of Canadian athletes the world class training she had to fight her way toward. Her own words say it best: no future Olympian should be left behind because of the family or circumstances they were born into. Record holder, rule breaker, and now building the runway for the athletes who come next.

When the suspension news broke in February 2026, Alysha posted a video saying she owed it to Canada and her supporters to clear the air. “I’ve never taken any enhanced drugs, I’ve never taken steroids, and the point of this suspension is simply a missed failure test of the whereabouts,” she said.