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Tatiana swaps pole for dancing role
Fiona Byrne
January 21, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Sunday Herald Sun
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OLYMPIC pole vaulter Tatiana Grigorieva will announce her retirement from the sport tomorrow.

The pin-up girl of Australian athletics will draw the curtain on her international career, which included a silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Grigorieva will vault straight into her new career as a celebrity dancer on Channel 7's top-rating Dancing with the Stars.

Grigorieva is believed to have signed on with the show last week and has began dance lessons already.

She told friends she thought long and hard about closing the door on her athletic career after recording her best results last year.

Those results came after frustrating injuries caused two years of disappointing competition.

The blonde cleared 4.5m-plus six times last year and collected a silver medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

She won gold in the event in the previous Games in Manchester in 2002.

At her last competition in South Korea in September, she cleared a career best 4.58m.

"She is going out on top having jumped personal bests in her last two competitions," a friend said.

"She has had time to contemplate her future, to have a think about what she wants to do, and she is ready to move on."

Grigorieva's Russian heritage, looks and performances made her one of Australia's most popular and recognisable athletes. At one stage she was named one of the 10 sexiest female athletes in the world. She moved to Australia from Russia in 1997.

"The blonde"...ugh. You would never hear "The dark-haired Walker..."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 18,00.html

Tatiana retires a happy hunter
By Jenny McAsey
January 22, 2007
AS she announced her retirement from pole vaulting yesterday, Tatiana Grigorieva cast her mind back to the most perfect night of her sporting career.
It was September 25, 2000, and while Australia had eyes only for Cathy Freeman, Grigorieva had eyes only for the pole vault runway and the high bar.

That is, except for 10 seconds, when she too became entranced by Freeman's run to 400m gold.

"I experienced that night from the inside," Grigorieva recalled yesterday.

"I remember watching Cathy come around the final bend. She wasn't leading and I remember thinking, 'Cathy you need to work hard now, put it together now, not a second later'."

It was the only moment over several hours of intense competition when Grigorieva's focus shifted.

"The only thing that existed for me was my run-up, and the bar, and my coach who was helping me from the stands. I couldn't see or hear anything else."

She went into the event virtually unknown in Australia but emerged with a silver medal and fame and fortune that rivalled Freeman's.

It took a personal best leap of 4.55 metres, and every bit of the mental muscle that was her greatest sporting asset.

While her glamourous looks skyrocketed her to stardom in the post-Olympic celebrity stakes, it was her tough competitive instinct that was the foundation of her success.


Beauty ... Grigorieva's glamorous looks brought her fame outside her sport. Pic: Steve Morenos

The tattoo on her toned stomach, of a rose surrounded by thorns, symbolised her nature.

"Sydney was absolutely the highlight of my career. It was the competition that changed my life," Grigorieva, 31, said yesterday.

"You work for years for that moment, and every jump has to be perfect, a mistake can cost you too much.

"I can say I made no mistakes on that night in Sydney, not from a technical point of view, or in my psychological and emotional preparation. In the lead-up to the competition I was able to handle it very well. I would give myself 10 out of 10."

Grigorieva never reached such heights again, but she retired yesterday content with her achievements.

She has a collection of medals any athlete would be proud of: an Olympic silver medal, a bronze medal from the 1999 world championships, and Commonwealth Games gold in 2002 and silver in 2006.

While her form and fortune wavered in the years since her Olympic success - she failed to make the 2003 Australia world championship team and the 2004 Australia Olympic team - Grigorieva didn't give up and has left the sport after her best European season.

"My main power is that I have always stayed positive in any situation," she said.

That kept her vaulting even after the trauma of her divorce from fellow pole vaulter Viktor Chistiakov.

While he left the sport, she persisted and went on to finish 2006 ranked in the top 10 in the world and finally surpassed the personal best of 4.56 metres she had set in 2001.

In her last two competitions, in Japan and Korea last September, she jumped 4.57 metres and then 4.58 metres.

It leaves her third on the Australian all-time list behind Kym Howe (4.62 metres) and Emma George (4.60 metres), but number one in terms of performances at major championships.

"I am happy to leave at this point. I've proved a lot of things to myself and other people in the past 12 months," Grigorieva said.

"There was a time when people said I shouldn't jump any more, when they said I was too old, but I didn't feel this way.

"I wanted to prove the only way for an athlete to go is not when other people say they have nothing left but when I am ready.

"This time has come, and I feel very comfortable with this decision. During my sporting career I had the highs and I have hit the absolute lows as well. I have been fortunate because I've experienced everything sport had to offer. But finishing on the highs, that is a good way to go."

http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/bm/na ... 23399.html

No regrets about retirement

• Tatiana Grigorieva feels terrific about retiring.
POLE vault queen Tatiana Grigorieva says she feels “terrificâ€Â

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 02,00.html

Tatiana's vaults over as settled life beckons
Jenny McAsey
January 22, 2007
TATIANA Grigorieva, the glamorous Australian pole vaulter, will retire from the sport even though she finished last year ranked in the top 10 in the world.
The 31-year-old's toned, tattooed physique may have helped in the fame game but it was her gutsy competitive streak that made her one of Australia's most successful athletes.
"It is a massive decision for me: I have been doing it for 10 years, it has been a fantastic journey," Grigorieva told The Australian yesterday.

"But I want to be settled now, I am ready for that. My personal ego is totally satisfied."

While her looks saw her voted one of the 10 sexiest female athletes in the world, her athletic achievements were world-class and always her priority.

She leaves the sport with a full complement of medals - a 2000 Olympic silver, a 1999 world championship bronze and Commonwealth Games gold (2002) and silver (last year) - a haul only a handful of Australian track-and-field athletes match. While her sporting star waned during the past few years as she struggled with injury and the end of her marriage to fellow pole vaulter Viktor Chistiakov, Grigorieva never gave up striving.

That was proved last year. Her final two competitive jumps, in Japan and Korea four months ago, were her highest. She leaves with a personal best of 4.58m, Australia's third-best female vault.

The statuesque Russian-born athlete, a junior hurdler, moved to Australia with her then boyfriend, Chistiakov, in 1997. She took up pole vaulting because it gave her the chance to travel with Chistiakov.

Her life changed when she jumped a personal best 4.55m to win silver before 110,000 fans at the Olympics in Sydney.