ROCHESTER, N.Y. – A big send-off party was held Thursday for Brynn King, a student at Roberts Wesleyan University and a member of Team USA.

The pole vaulter is coached by gold medalist Jenn Suhr and was one of three American women to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

“I’m extremely excited, this has been kind of a dream come true,” King said at a press conference just before the party.

King transferred from Duke to Roberts Wesleyan last year and she has been able to raise the bar almost two feet since she started working with Jenn and her husband and long-time coach, Rick Suhr.

“I expected her to get better, not 53 centimeters better, that’s unheard of,” says Rick Suhr, “persistence and will, I think the strength of her will is just increasing by the day so, it’s really been a magical, magical thing to watch.”

King is continuing to grow at just the right time.

“Technique is getting better, I’m getting stronger, I feel like this is a good part in the season where I’ve just been on a steady incline so, I’m excited to see what I can do now,” King says.

No one knows how King is feeling…the stress, the excitement, better than her other coach–three-time Olympian, Jenn Suhr.

“Every time I called home, I was like, “I don’t want to talk about the Olympics, I want to talk about dogs, I want to talk about animals. So, yesterday she was at the Chautauqua County Fair petting goats and feeding them, so anything we can do to keep her mind off of it when she’s not jumping,” Suhr says.

Helping King qualify for a spot on Team USA has also helped Suhr through her retirement from the sport. This time when she heads back to the Olympics, it’ll be a much different experience.

“When Rick and I did this, it was a lot of stress that we put upon ourselves and it was always business and now we get to step back because it’s not us and we get to watch her go through it and watch her parents and it kinda revives all those good memories that we may have missed or overlooked just because of the stress,” she says.

No matter what happens in Paris, “Brynn’s in a no-lose situation here,” Rick Suhr says. “If the season ends in three jumps there, she still put together probably the greatest college season of any college athlete in history in pole vault.”

While King is from Texas, her coaches are from the Rochester region and she’s done all her training here.

“I think the most proud I’ve been is how everyone has taken Brynn in and she has a family here,” Jenn Suhr says. “I was worried about what it would be like not being in your hometown being an Olympian, that hasn’t been a worry anymore.”

Brynn, Jenn, and Rick will head to Paris next weekend. They’re not planning to attend the opening ceremonies since Brynn doesn’t jump until August 5 but a number of King’s family members and friends will be attending the games so she is planning to stay for the closing ceremonies and some sightseeing.

On Thursday, dozens of friends and supporters gathered for a send-off party for King at Roberts Wesleyan.

“I totally feel like I’ve been adopted into a little family. Everywhere I go, I can’t go anywhere now without someone recognizing me, coming up and telling me how supportive they are, that they’re praying for me. That they’re so excited to watch me on this journey and it’s really nice to see the support from not only Roberts but the whole community of Rochester,” she says.

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