Yelena Isinbayeva

In the world of pole vaulting, there are two names which will likely stand for all time as two of the most dominant athletes in their field, or any sport for that matter. One is Olympic gold medalist and six time world champion Sergey Bubka. The other is Yelena Isinbayeva.

Isinbayeva, hailing from Volgograd, began training for gymnastics as a five year old, following in the Soviet Union’s long history of successful gymnasts. But when her growing height began to limit her range on the gymnastics floor, she turned her attention to the emerging sport of women’s pole vaulting.

Her potential as a pole vaulter became appearant almost immediately. In 1999, Isinbayeva took home her first global gold medal at the first IAAF World Youth Championships. She followed this first gold up with another world title, this time at the 2000 IAAF World Junior Championships. In her last year as a junior athlete in 2001, Isinbayeva won the pole vault at the European Junior Championships. Along the way to her three junior gold medals, she set two world junior records.

While Isinbayeva’s first senior medal came in the form of the silver at the 2002 European Championships in Munich, it wasn’t until 2003 that began to make her mark on the sport of pole vaulting. She began the year with a silver medal at the IAAF World Indoor Championships, and that summer she set her first world record with a jump of 4.82m, 9cm better than her previous best jump and 22cm better than her best mark from the year before. Though she went to the IAAF World Championships that year as the new world record holder, she would leave with only the bronze medal.

While a bronze medal would satisfy most, for Isinbayeva, her disappointment at the end of 2003 would motivate her to achieve new levels of greatness the next year. In 2004, Isinbayeva lost just two competitions and set seven world records. But most important of all, won the gold medal at the Athens Olympics, with one of her world record jumps, no less.

Though an Olympic gold medal with a world record performance might seem like the way to close out a great career, for Isinbayeva, 2004 would prove to be only the beginning. In 2005, Isinbayeva set eight more world records. She also won both the European Indoor Championships in Madrid and the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki. So dominant was Isinbayeva, that she opened both her indoor and outdoor seasons with world record jumps, and she finished the year with only a single loss.

Her next year wasn’t very different. Isinbayeva set another world record in her first indoor competition of the year, and won the IAAF World Indoor Championships in front of the home crowd in Moscow. She captured the European Outdoor title in Gothenburg, ended the year with only two losses.

To follow up the nearly perfect season, Isinbayeva was absolutely perfect in 2007. She set yet another world record in the indoor season, and went completely undefeated the entire year. She successfully defended her world title that summer. This utterly dominant 2007, along with her early 2008 success, including yet another world record and the defense of her World Indoor title, has set Isinbayeva up as the preeminent favorite to defend her Olympic gold medal this summer in Beijing.