Isinbayeva Career Tidbits

[roger/over]

Isinbayeva recently has been so dominant in the women's vault that when she failed an attempt at yet another world record in the Stockholm meet three days ago, I wondered how long it had been since she last had been unsuccessful in a world record attempt.

It didn't take as much searching as I expected: just over two weeks ago, in the meet at Réthimno. There, after winning the event at 4.70, she failed three tries for a one-centimeter improvement on her then world record of 4.93m.

That led me to my next question: How long had it been since she actually lost a pole vault competition? I expected, like, forever. Actually, though, I found that she had lost once both indoors and outdoors in 2004; most recently to Feofanova at Iráklio on July 4th of last year. Feofanova won, 4.88 to 4.65--the last time Isinbayeva surrendered the world record.

I intended that to be my last question, but by then I was hooked. How did she get to her present position of absolute dominance, and were there stumbles along the way? I looked for a published career record, without finding one. I checked Jalava's annual performance lists through 2001, and then I really was hooked. This athlete is really incredible, in both quality and quantity of her efforts.

I want to take a bit more time to check for errors in my summary of her short career before posting what I've found, but here are a few highlights, thus far.

Her 2001 outdoor season had at least 14 competitions, including meets one day apart in Grosseto and London and two days apart in Roverto and Berlin, in the second of which she set a world junior record of 4.46m. Busy lady!

She set her first world record of 4.82m at Gateshead on 13 July 2003 and since has improved the outdoor record another 8 times and the indoor record 7 times.

She has competed against American record holder and 16-time indoor and outdoor world record breaker Stacy Dragila 28 times and came out ahead in16 of those, with one tie.

She has competed, I think, 43 times against Russian compatriot Svetlana Feofanova, herself 11 times indoor and outdoor world record breaker, and Feofanova leads that duel, 24-19. Feofanova has broken Russian records 23 times; Isinbayeva, 18 times. Still a little work yet to be done there, but Isinbayeva's probably not quite through racking up records.

As I wrote earlier, I've completed a draft of Isinbayeva's career marks (89 of them, after eliminating qualifying rounds), but will do some more checking before posting the list. Meanwhile, two requests: If anyone knows of a similar list for her, I'd appreciate a reference so I can compare. If anyone knows of any no-heights in her career, I'd also appreciate having that. I haven't found any.

Cheers