Khushnoor Rangi has spent her junior athletics career sharing podiums with her twin sister. This August, she competes on the world stage on her own.
The Melbourne-based pole vaulter has been selected to represent Australia at the 2026 World Athletics Under-20 Championships, capping a season that has established her as one of the country’s brightest young athletics talents. The Maribyrnong Sports Academy athlete secured her place after winning the Women’s U20 Pole Vault title at the Australian U20 Athletics Championships, clearing 4.06 metres.
That national title followed a personal best just three weeks earlier, when Rangi cleared 4.17 metres, a jump that underlined the rapid progress behind her selection. Over the past three years, she has established herself as one of Australia’s leading under-20 pole vaulters, consistently finishing among the nation’s top two athletes in her age category.
Where and when she competes
The championships run from 5 to 9 August 2026 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, one of the sport’s most storied venues. Rangi’s selection places her in a record 75-member Australian team, comprising 37 male and 38 female athletes, which Australian Athletics has described as the country’s biggest ever contingent for the global junior championships.
Who is Khushnoor Rangi
Rangi, 16, trains at Maribyrnong Sports Academy in Melbourne’s west alongside her twin sister, Sukhnoor Kaur Rangi, also an elite junior pole vaulter. The sisters were born to Indian migrants Manpreet Kaur and Navdeep Singh Rangi and have built one of Victorian athletics’ most distinctive junior sporting stories, regularly finishing first and second at state and national junior pole vault competitions across the past several years.
At one point in their under-18 careers, the twins sat first and second in the World Athletics rankings for their age category simultaneously, an unusually rare outcome for siblings in a discipline demanding the specific combination of core strength, sprint speed and technical precision pole vault requires.
What is pole vault?
What is pole vault?
Pole vault is a track and field discipline in which athletes use a long, flexible pole to launch themselves over a horizontal bar suspended between two uprights. Competitors sprint down a runway, plant one end of the pole into a metal box at the base of the uprights, and use the pole’s flex to convert their forward momentum into vertical lift, releasing the pole mid-air before clearing the bar and landing on a padded mat.It demands an unusual combination of sprint speed, upper and core body strength, gymnastic body control and technical timing, and is considered one of the more physically demanding and technically complex events in athletics.
What the selection means locally
Rangi’s selection has drawn recognition from her local community. Following the announcement, a local representative congratulated the Maribyrnong Sports Academy student directly: “What an incredible achievement, and one that makes our entire Maribyrnong community proud. Your dedication, hard work and determination have earned you the opportunity to wear the green and gold on the world stage.” The tribute also acknowledged the academy itself, crediting it for “continuing to develop and support such outstanding young athletes,” and closed with a message directly to Rangi ahead of her trip to Oregon: “Wishing you every success in Oregon, Khushnoor. We’ll all be cheering you on every step, and every vault, of the way.”
Why this matters for the Indian-Australian community
Rangi’s selection places her among a growing cohort of Indian-origin athletes achieving national representative honours across Australian sport this year, alongside gymnast Ritam Malik‘s Commonwealth Games bronze medal in Glasgow and the four Australian students selected for India’s Mission ShakthiSAT satellite programme.
For a Melbourne family with Indian migrant roots, having twin daughters simultaneously ranked among the world’s best junior pole vaulters, and now one of them representing Australia at a World Championship on US soil, is precisely the kind of story that resonates across the Indian diaspora’s own sense of what is achievable within a single generation of settlement.
What comes next
Rangi’s event at the World U20 Championships in Eugene has not been separately detailed beyond her qualification in the pole vault. World Athletics’ qualifying standard for the event sits at 4.05 metres, a mark Rangi has already cleared twice this season, at both her 4.06 metre national title win and her 4.17 metre personal best.
What the Indian-Australian community is asking
When exactly does Khushnoor Rangi compete at the World U20 Championships?
The championships run from 5 to 9 August 2026 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. The specific date and time of the women’s U20 pole vault qualification and final within that window has not been separately confirmed in current reporting.
Is Khushnoor’s twin sister Sukhnoor also competing at these championships?
Current reporting on the Australian team selection confirms Khushnoor Rangi’s selection specifically. Sukhnoor Rangi has been a similarly high-ranked junior pole vaulter, but her selection status for this specific championship has not been confirmed in the sources available.
What is Khushnoor Rangi’s personal best in pole vault?
Her most recent personal best is 4.17 metres, set approximately three weeks before her 4.06 metre clearance that won her the Australian U20 national title.
How large is the Australian team at these championships?
Australia has selected a record 75-member team for the 2026 World U20 Championships, comprising 37 male and 38 female athletes, described by Australian Athletics as the nation’s largest-ever contingent for this event.
Where can I follow Khushnoor Rangi’s results from Eugene?
World Athletics maintains an official athlete profile and live results service during the championships. Athletics Australia and Maribyrnong Sports Academy’s official channels are also likely to post updates during the competition window.
