McCartney earned a junior world championship bronze medal in 2014 at Oregon and took silver at last year's World University Games in Korea.
She's the person to befriend if you've got a moat to cross or a fortress to breach. Her career prospects are rising as fast as she does when planting her pole in the vicinity of the foam mats.
McCartney eclipsed her own national record and set a new Oceania mark in Dunedin this month when she cleared 4.80m.
"I couldn't ask for a better build-up to the world indoors and Rio with these competitions," McCartney said at the time.
"These heights are what I want. It makes medalling [at the Olympics] look realistic."
The attempt was also the best vault of any woman in outdoor competition this year.
Rio will be just the fifth time women's pole vault has featured at the Olympics. The only other New Zealand woman to be selected in the discipline was Melina Hamilton at Athens in 2004.
McCartney remains, to some degree, a pioneer in a sport requiring the finesse of a gymnast and power of a sprinter. She was a useful high jumper at high school before being introduced to pole vaulting at North Harbour Bays club nights.
She credits Jeremy McColl, who coaches a vaulting development squad at the Millennium Institute on Auckland's North Shore, for a lot of her success.
McColl has been known to personally pay for carbon fibre poles to keep his athletes internationally competitive, and even built a downhill runway at the Millennium Institute to allow athletes to train at higher volume.
