PARIS — Alysha Newman found happiness long before she found herself in the Olympic pole vault final here.

But as content as she was, she needed to jump beyond the devastation of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when she no-heighted in qualification, a performance that hastened a downward spiral that was both personal and professional.

“It ate me up until they told me I made this final,” an elated Newman said Monday morning at Stade de France. “A lot of people don’t know I haven’t made a final since 2019, and it’s been eating away at me for five years and it’s emotional and it’s hard, because it’s not like someone wakes up and says I want to pole vault every day. “There has to be some fire and there has to be some passion behind it. And my environment, that’s who makes me keep coming back. My coaches. They see me more than I have ever seen myself and without them I definitely would not have kept pushing. I laughed. I said this might be my last (Olympics) but I don’t know. I’m having fun and I just turned 30, so maybe I’m entering a prime when I thought I was in my prime before. It might be a new type of prime.”