Among the Drexel University student's bigger boasts that emerged this week was her claim that she qualified for the U.S. Olympic team pole-vaulting trials for the 2004 Greek games. But since Drexel doesn't have a track and field team, Kirsch would practice with the University of Pennsylvania team, she told a former friend, who didn't want her name to be used.
"I went to Penn, I was friends with the team, she never trained there," the Penn alumna wrote in an e-mail.
Another classmate said Kirsch posted a photo of herself on her Facebook page - don't bother looking for it, she took down the page over the weekend - pole vaulting "some ridiculous height that only an Olympian could do," said the former bud, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The face in the photo was too dark to discern, the classmate said, adding that "it was clearly taken from another site."
Some of Kirsch's Drexel classmates never really bought the notion, including one Facebook user who posted a photo on one of two Facebook pages dedicated to Kirsch, titled "SHE GOIN' TO JAAAAAAAAIL!!!! (and THAT'S hilarious)." The image features a pole vaulter with Kirsch's police mug shot as the head and two cops behind her on Segways. The caption reads, "Can't catch me, I'm a gold medalist!!!"
Kate Agnelli, a friend from Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, N.C., said Kirsch did pole vault for at least one year, perhaps two, during high school. "She was a good pole vaulter."
Still, the idea of the buxom chameleon on Team USA prompted Agnelli to guffaw. "That's funny," she said. "No, she didn't do that."
"The part of me that was friends with her knows she's sad and that's why she does the things that she does," she said. "The part of me that's a little bit vindictive is not sad to see her getting hers, but hopefully some good will come of it and she'll straighten herself out."
