World Champs WPV - Isi NH! Rogowska gold! Pyrek/Johnson silv

[Bubba PV]

Thanks for the info Bruce. She's a super star who had a bad day, just like Tiger Woods the day before. She certainly hasn't fallen a millimeter in my book. Good for the other girls who capitalized on her lapse. They stepped up and earned what they deserved. Like Tiger, I’m sure the queen is far from done. If nothing else, maybe this drives the WR to 5.20m. That’s great for everyone. Bubba

[rainbowgirl28]

While I am a fan of Isi as an athlete, I've never been a big fan of her attitude or personality, maybe because it's so different from mine. She's never friendly or pleasant to the other competitors. Being focused is a good thing, but most of the rest of the girls find a balance between being focused when it's time to compete, and being a nice person.

But I have to give her credit. She is handling this with maturity.

How many times have we seen her blame outside circumstances when she comes up short in the record setting department? The wait was too long or the wind was bad or she was tired after a long season (usually justified, but still)... I thought for SURE that she would be full of excuses after this, but she wasn't!

I know a lot of people think she opened too high, or that she made a mistake by passing after her first miss, but I don't think either was a mistake if she had a good warm-ups. She often opens at 4.70 or better, and she often passes to the next height after a miss. The weather was great, and I can only assume everything felt good in warmups.

Maybe her (minor?) leg injury zapped her speed a little more than she and Petrov have realized. Maybe they failed to make the right adjustments. But the weather was great and she has jumped 4.85 so far outdoors, in a season where most of her meets have had crappy weather. Remember, it was just this past February that she opened at 4.76 and made 5.00 meters in Donestk!

Sometimes it just doesn't come together in three jumps. I really don't think the height of the bar was the issue. She's had misses at opening heights/important heights dozens of times. Eventually your luck runs out!

Good for her for being a mature woman about this, not a bratty little girl.

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/spor ... emony.html

Joy turns to tears at Pole Vault medal ceremony
19.08.2009 15:50

Silver medalist in the women’s Pole Vault, Monika Pyrek was reduced to tears when announced as a bronze medalist at the medal ceremony, Tuesday, at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

Monika Pyrek vaulted to joint silver with American Chelsea Johnson, behind fellow Pole Anna Rogowska in a shock defeat of the Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, the so-called tsar of women’s Pole Vault.

At the medal ceremony, however, the organizers brought out, not a gold and two silver medals but a gold, silver and bronze and wanted to hang a third place medal around Pyrek’s neck. Things got worse when a hastily prepared silver substitute gong for Pyrek had the name of Chelsea Johnson inscribed on it.

On hearing of the chaos going on behind the scenes Monika Pyrek did not want to step on to the podium, muttering “It’s not fair,” with tears filing her eyes.

“Such a happy day happens once in a lifetime and they have spoiled it,” Monika Pyrek complained after the ceremony.

Poland currently is positioned sixth place in the medal table, with Rogowska’s gold and silvers for Pyrek, hammer thrower Szymon Ziokowski and shot putter Tomasz Majewski and a bronze for Kamila Chudzik in the heptathlon.

Poland’s only hope of a medal on Wednesday is with Piotr Malachowski in the Discus, who was the silver medal winner in the Beijing Olympics last summer. (pg/jg)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.russiatoday.com/Sport/2009-0 ... ilure.html

Teammate explains Isinbaeva’s failure
19 August, 2009, 16:22

Pole Vault World record holder Elena Isinbaeva failed in Berlin because she wanted to ‘win without putting much effort into it’ says Russian two times Olympic medalist Svetlana Feofanova.

Isinbaeva, who has dominated the sport for five years, was unable to clear a single height at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in the German capital, allowing Anna Rogowska to celebrate a victory she never dreamed of claiming.

And Feofanova suggested it happened because the Russian athlete wanted to grab the gold by showing a rather modest result of 4. 75 metres or 4.80 metres as she did in Osaka in 2007, RIA-Novosti news agency reports.

But when Isinbaeva, whose world record is 5.05 metres, failed her first attempt, she just got nervous.

According to Feofanova, it was better to start the competition from 4.65 metres to boost confidence with a successful jump.

She also stressed that Isinbaeva’s techniques were far from ideal on the night, but added that despite all the negative factors she should have won.

Svetlana Feofanova, who missed the event in Berlin due to injury, was a world champion in pole vault in 2003. She than took silver at Athens Olympics in 2004 and was third last year in Beijing.