Simon Graham Arkell (born 1 July 1966) is an Olympic

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a #bar, bar. Pole jumping was already practiced by the ...

er from Australia, who competed in two consecutive

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

, starting in 1992.

Biography

During his career he was Commonwealth Champion, NCAA All-American (5 times), WAC Conference Champion (7 times) and broke 9 Australian and 4 Commonwealth records. He was also Australian (3) and British (2) Champion, was 1993 Australian Athlete of the Year and is in the Athletics Hall of Fame for the State of South Australia and the University of New Mexico, USA. After his athletic career Arkell went on to co-found Versifi Technologies, Predixion Software and Deep Lens, an oncology-focused clinical trial matching software company that uses artificial intelligence to match cancer patient to clinical trials. Deep Lens was backed by venture capital firms Northpond Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Rev1 and Tamarind Hill Fund and was acquired in May 2022 by Paradigm Health in an all-cash deal. He is co-founder and CEO of Ryght, an early stage AI software company focused on the biopharma industry, and he is a seed stage investor and board member. Arkell twice won the British

AAA Championships The AAA Championships was an annual track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association of England. It was the foremost domestic athletics event in the United Kingdom during its lifetime, despite the existence of the offi ...

title in the pole vault event at the

1988 AAA Championships The 1988 AAA Championships was an outdoor track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA), held from 5–7 August at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, England.It served as the trials for the 1988 British Olympic te ...

and the 1993 AAA Championships.

Achievements

References

1966 births Living people Australian male pole vaulters Athletes (track and field) at the 1986 Commonwealth Games Athletes (track and field) at the 1990 Commonwealth Games Athletes (track and field) at the 1992 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Australia Commonwealth Games gold medallists for Australia Commonwealth Games athletes for Australia 20th-century Australian sportsmen Medallists at the 1990 Commonwealth Games Sportspeople from Maidenhead Australian Athletics Championships winners Commonwealth Games gold medallists in athletics {{Australia-athletics-bio-stub