Isinbayeva Considers Attempting 5.00 meters in London

[rainbowgirl28]

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/s ... 93,00.html

Isinbayeva raises the bar

Jamie Jackson
Sunday July 17, 2005
The Observer

Just about every time she competes, Yelena Isinbayeva sets a world record. She has done it 14 times in just over two years, and will almost certainly make it 15 in front of a full house of 18,500 at Crystal Palace on Friday evening. This one, though, could be far more significant than the others.
Isinbayeva, the women's pole-vault champion whose victory in Athens was one of the more memorable moments of the Olympics, took her record to 4.93 metres in Lausanne last month. On Friday she is expected to attempt a huge leap forward for women's pole vaulting, a sport that has existed only since the 1990s and which has featured in the Olympics only twice. She is ready to go for the 5m mark.

'Isinbayeva's coach and agent both feel that London is the ideal place to attempt five metres,' says the meeting director, Ian Stewart. 'I've spoken to her advisers who tell me that she's in shape to make a genuine attempt. She intends to take the event to unprecedented heights.' Ask Isinbayeva, though, and she becomes coy. 'It's a great height and I think it's possible. I jumped it this year in the spring two times over elastic but not the bar.'
So will she go for it? 'I don't know. If the weather is good, if I feel good myself.' The former gymnast's ability to raise the mark every time she grips a pole is a major reason why pole vaulting's stock has risen from its fledgling competitive beginnings in 1997, when Stacy Dragila became world champion in Paris with the inaugural world best of 4.40m. Another reason is glamour. Dragila, former model Tatiana Gregorieva and now Isinbayeva, who wiggles her rear just before setting off down the runway, are all strikingly attractive and are collectively the reason why the sport is referred to by marketing and television executives as 'chicks on sticks'. 'Of course it is important [to look good],' says Isinbayeva. 'I have many contracts and sponsorship deals. There are lots of offers and proposals for more, but while the competitive season is on I do not take them up. Everybody knows about the event now and it is more interesting. Eight years ago the results were just four metres.' Isinbayeva has earned about $500,000 in prize money by raising the record just a centimetre each time - with $170,000 coming in just five meetings in the UK. With anything up to $50,000 on offer - that's the prize this week - for each new mark, her progress has caused the inevitable murmurs that the system is being milked.

'It's not a lot of money,' she says. 'The people must remember I have to pay tax and then my manager and my coach. I do it because I want to beat [men's record holder] Sergei Bubka, who has 35 world records and I would like to make it 36. I think it's possible for me. So I need to do it centimetre by centimetre. And now the women's event is more famous than the men's pole vault.

'Also, if I jump, for example, five metres tomorrow, I won't have anything left. I don't want to be like Bob Beamon [the former long-jump world-record holder]. He jumped 8.9 metres and was finished. I don't want this. The spectators want to see me taking part in competition.' Again, this suggests doubt over whether she will try for 5m this week, although that may just be the commercial operator within. Bubka, the double Olympic champion and IOC presidential candidate, has said that when the height is finally cleared he will take women's pole vault seriously.

So will Isinbayeva go for it in south London? 'I think I will try, but I don't know how it will be.' And Bubka's influence? 'He just talks about himself and what he did in certain situations in terms of how I should perform.' Another reason why pole vaulting is 'sexy' is the rivalry between the top women. The Olympic event was memorable because Isinbayeva and her leading opponent, Svetlana Feofanova, do not get along, and it showed. Feofanova, the former world-record holder, has faded since winning bronze in Athens and does not receive more than a 'Hi' and a 'Bye'. Why? 'I admire all my competitors and don't distinguish between them,' Isinbayeva says. But, as a fellow Russian, are you friendly with her? 'No. We're not friends. We do not speak.' Why not? 'Because I don't need it. I have a lot of friends but in different sports - 100 metres, high jump, triple jump, but not pole vault. I always concentrate by myself and when I compete I don't need a friend in the same sport.' So the suggestion that you requested a separate flight to the indoor meeting at Glasgow this year is incorrect? 'No, it's not true. When there is competition we fly the same flights.' She pauses. 'It's not true.'

Does she have time for a boyfriend? 'Yes. I have had one for three years. He's also a pole vaulter, he trains in the same group as me and has the same coach. He supports me and helps me compete and always understands me. It is different with him. But no,' she adds with a laugh, 'I'm not going to give his name.' Isinbayeva, who lives in Volgograd with her parents and younger sister, believes her gymnastic grounding was of benefit. 'It's a great help because I have good, strong hands and legs. You have to have to keep your waist and legs straight, so balance is important. When I came to the pole vault my coach taught me the technical stuff.'

Britain's leading practitioner, Janine Whitlock, agrees that a background in gymnastics is important. 'I'm quicker than Isinbayeva, but it is all about how good you are with the pole in your hand, how balanced when you attempt the jump. Because I never did gymnastics when I was younger, I now do it once a week.' Whitlock has qualified for Helsinki and will compete, but has to appeal against her ban for a positive drugs test, which is life-long for certain events, if she is to feature in February's Commonwealth Games. She was out for two years during which time her nearest British rival, 22-year-old Ellie Spain, has managed only 4.15m, which indicates the lack of depth coming through for major championships.

Whitlock won her sixth national title last Sunday with a British record of 4.46m. But is still well short of world class. 'In training I have the bar in the four-metre-90s and I clear it, although a part of my body touches it. In competition I get nervous. That's why competing against Isinbayeva on Friday will be good, because she is the standard I'm aiming for.' Can Isinbayeva keep on improving? 'I still make mistakes now, though not so many. But my speed is quicker than in the winter,' she says. Which makes the future a little demoralising for any pretenders. 'I want to compete as long as I'm healthy. This week I will give it my best. I like the track and crowd in London. It is a lucky country for me. I hope everything will be OK because I will try and break the record.' But by how much?

[rainbowgirl28]

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArt ... S-PRIX.xml

Women's pole vault world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia has said she will attempt to break the five metres barrier if conditions are right on Friday.

The 23-year-old Olympic champion has already set two world bests this month, sailing over 4.95 metres in Madrid last Saturday to beat her previous record of 4.93 set on July 5.

[JMP8928]

holy crap. good luck baby!

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 23,00.html

Isinbayeva's soaring ambition keeps her on top of the world
By David Powell
Russia’s extraordinary pole vaulter is at home with her fame

DOWN Soviet Street, parallel to the main road through Volgograd, lies the City School. On a rare day’s rest from training, Yelena Isinbayeva walks past one of 17 tank turrets marking the front line of Soviet troops during the Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942 and continues through the open, buckled, iron gates. It is a Sunday morning and the school seems deserted.
Isinbayeva knocks on the door. No reply. She knocks again. Still no answer. She shouts her name and pauses for a few seconds. Now the door opens and the caretaker greets her warmly. This is Isinbayeva’s Alma Mater, an austere building where the visitor’s eye is deflected from the need for repairs by seemingly endless trails of hanging photographs.

As the school echoes to the sound of footsteps, we are walking along corridors of history. Former pupils here include Olympic champions from several decades and several sports, including weightlifting, gymnastics, swimming and Isinbayeva’s sport, athletics. Now she is among them, having taken the pole vault title in Athens last summer.

On one wall, the champions are linked under a common headline: Hearts That Were Dedicated To Sports. The school has changed little since the break-up of the Soviet Union and it still produces champions in an environment where the timetable accommodates sports training and education in equal measure. Pupils are selected for their sporting potential. “Normal people do not go to this school,â€Â

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/43517.html

The qualifying mark would be the jackpot for McConnell, but the biggest beneficiary of a drama-packed programme could be pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. The Russian, who has set 15 world records, has been guaranteed $50,000 for a 16th, but "a significant unspecified additional bonus if she becomes the first woman to clear five metres," said a spokesman.