Background
McCartney was born in Auckland, where she still lives in the seaside suburb of Devonport.
McCartney was born in Auckland, where she still lives in the seaside suburb of Devonport.
She attended Takapuna Grammar School, and was a successful high jumper in her early teens before beginning pole vaulting in 2011. The following year she broke the New Zealand youth record and was selected for the 2013 World Youth Championships in Athletics where she finished fourth.
She is the current outdoor world junior record holder at 4.64 m (15 ft 21⁄2 in) and New Zealand national record holder with 4.80 m (15 ft 83⁄4 in). She was a silver medallist at the Summer Universiade in 2015. In July 2014 McCartney took the bronze medal at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics, with a vault of 4.45 m (14 ft 7 in) which was her first New Zealand national record.
In 2015 she claimed her first senior national title at the New Zealand Athletics Championships. and gained the silver medal at the Universiade with a height of 4.40 m (14 ft 5 in).
On 19 December 2015 McCartney set a world junior record of 4.64 m (15 ft 21⁄2 in) at Auckland"s Mount Smart Stadium. On 17 January 2016 she vaulted 4.65 m (15 ft 3 in) in Brisbane, Australia improving her own national senior and junior records (but not the world junior record).
On 23 February 2016 she jumped 4.71m at the Vertical Pursuit international pole vault competition at Millennium Institute of Sport in Auckland, setting four new records: New Zealand national, New Zealand under 20, New Zealand resident and New Zealand all comers. She was subsequently added to the New Zealand team to the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships where she finished fifth.
On 5 March 2016 she jumped 4.80m at the national championships in Dunedin, to surpass her own New Zealand record.
This would also have been a new Oceania record, but the IAAF normally requires a minimum of three competitors in an event for a record to be ratified and in this case there were only two.