NEWELL Anicka

General
ATTITUDE SHIFT
She believes she has improved her attitude since the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, when she was new to international competition. "I'm a totally different person now [speaking in early 2021]. We have adjusted so much and mainly the biggest adjustment we made is with my attitude. I'm kind of a diva and we took a step back and realised the frustrations I had at practices were not necessary and not helpful. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so if something wasn't quite going my way I would pretty much throw a fit. This year [2021] that is just not the case. It's a totally new perspective and I just feel like a machine this year. I'm ready to go. I'm so hungry and so confident. I've never felt this good in my entire life. That person back in Rio is dead and gone." (torontosun.com, 07 Jan 2021)

REPRESENTING CANADA
She has dual citizenship of the United States of America and Canada. Born in Denton, TX, United States of America, she is eligible to compete for Canada as her mother was born there. "My mother is Canadian and when I was little we used to go every summer and winter up until I got real busy in college. There are a lot of great vaulters in the US and I had the opportunity to go to Canada and be able to be on their team, so I think we just kind of saw that [opportunity] and decided to take it." (kplctv.com, 22 Jul 2016)

OCCUPATION
She is a pole vault coach at Elite Sportz in St. Hedwig, TX, United States of America, and has also worked as a health and fitness coach. (Facebook profile, 24 Jul 2020; Instagram profile, 23 Jan 2021; torontosun.com, 07 Jan 2021)