On 30 Dec 2005, Спорт-Экспресс (Sport-Express) wrote:BEST ATHLETE OF RUSSIA-2005 according to "СЭ"
- Will three laps be sufficient, Vitaliy Afanasevich?..
- Of course not, Lenochka, run a little, until you feel that your muscles are warmed up and they are ready to work...
There are no movie cameras and photoflashes, although the moment is almost historical: the outstanding pole-vaulter, the best sportswoman of Russia in 2005 according to “SE”, Yelena Isinbayeva, begins her first training in Donetsk, where last Monday she arrived, flying together with her new trainer, Vitaliy Petrov.
For Petrov, who spent the last fourteen years living and working in Italy, this facility – this is his native house. Here in his time he fostered Sergey Bubka. Now Isinbayeva assaults the steep turns of this track. It is not as if she needs nursing – she is already prepared, acknowledged as the world’s premier vaulter. However, from this the task of the trainer becomes only more critical.
The day before they completed the multi-hour and tiresome journey along the route from Formia to Rome, Budapest, Kiev, and finally Donetsk; therefore Petrov is disposed loyally to his distinguished student: the first training session at the new place lasts no more than an hour. For your correspondent this is handy – it makes possible to more quickly begin the conversation with Isinbayeva about the outgoing year, which brought her famous victories and to a famous turning point in her sport fate.
We begin, of course, with the victories. And I tell Isinbayeva: It seems to me that the laureate of the "СЭ" competition was already determined on 24 July in London, when you became the first girl in the world to whom submitted the 5-meter height. Sport exploits of this scale do not occur every year and even not every decade.
Спорт-Экспресс - Did you previously determine the place and time for the "cosmic" leap or did it simply occur?
Елена Исинбаева - Probably it would have been more spectacular if this had appeared at the World Championships. However to put this aside until Helsinki would have been risky. It’s well known there as a capricious venue with unpredictable weather during August. But in London everything coincided in the best way: a wonderful warm evening, desperately supportive spectators, my irreproachable physical state and finally a good mood. When the second attempt took 4.96, which also exceeded the world record, I thought: And why not exactly five meters, if everything is so wonderfully composed? I asked the judges to raise the bar four more centimeters – If we look from the ground, this seems a negligible value. And I jumped!
СЭ - You did not want "to put aside until Helsinki", but there three weeks later you took 5.01...
ЕИ - At the World Championship, if you remember, they delayed our finals by two days because of rain showers. It was simply a happy case, the confluence of circumstances, that we – a few of us – obtained the possibility to compete on a dry field and in almost windless weather.
СЭ - Not once for his entire career could Bubka break the world record at the Olympiad, the World or European Championships. You make this happen with bribing regularity: at the Winter World Championship in Budapest, at the Olympiad in Athens, at the European Indoor Championship in Madrid, and finally in Helsinki... Is your nervous system really completely indifferent to the rank of the competition?
ЕИ - I am the same as any athlete. And in the commercial competitions I feel myself more liberated than in the official competitions. Therefore in the first case it is critical only for me, while in the second – for the team of the country, which I represent. However, if I already won, I feel the desire to deliver pleasure to the spectators. Do you know what a tournament without a record is like? Like a holiday table without the dessert. Like you are satisfied by victory; but the conclusion nevertheless is missing.
СЭ - Do the spectators in the stands have an effect on you?
ЕИ - Enormous! Their support is very important. Just imagine: all around are burning eyes, and in them - the expectation of a miracle...
СЭ - Really, being located on the field, is it possible to see the eyes of those in the stands?
ЕИ - Very much! Especially indoors, where you very clearly sense the breathing in the stands. If someone raises a sign overhead with my name or simply shouts loudly: "Lena, we are with you!" – This properly winds me up. Bear in mind that we, track & field athletes, are not surrounded by this adoration like, let us say, the world class football stars. Therefore any sign of audience attention is valuable to us.
СЭ - From whom do you hide your eyes under the visor of your baseball cap during the time between attempts? Or is this a method to fence yourself off from your rivals?
ЕИ - I hide from the photo and television cameras. I understand that the reporters’ work is such, but sometimes they behave too unceremoniously. But when the baseball cap covers your eyes, it becomes unimportant whether they are aimed at you or not.
СЭ - In accordance with the recommendation of a psychologist that he worked with at one time, Bubka preferred not to associate with his rivals at all during the competitions, he even did not give hands to them, since allegedly it is possible to obtain negative energy through a handshake... Do you believe in this?
ЕИ - Completely. And I also behave reservedly on the field, I associate with no one. Only it is not necessary to interpret this as disrespect or hostility to my rivals. On the contrary, from my point of view, I must behave precisely so as a professional sportsperson, to sense myself as the leader.
СЭ - In Helsinki, when the representative of Toyota, the official sponsor of the 2005 World Championships, entrusted the $100,000 check for the world record to you, in the presence of all honest people you promised two additional record leaps by the end of the season - 5.02 and 5.03. This was hasty?
ЕИ - I got tired. I did everything possible to keep my word, but alas... Once more I was convinced how this is dangerous – to plan world records. There were four more starts; however, the peak of my form remained behind, and I was completely devastated emotionally.
СЭ - Your break with your trainer Yevgeny Trofimov that made so much noise, was this related?
ЕИ - None. This all happened more recently, after the season already ended.
СЭ - Can you nevertheless explain why it occurred, what issue arose between people who worked together – and were very successful – for eight years?
ЕИ - That, about which you interpret, occurred not between us, but inside of me alone, and Trofimov was not involved. After the completion of the season I left for a month to rest, but when I returned to Volgograd, I suddenly caught myself thinking that I no longer wanted to jump with the pole...
СЭ - Yet why?!
ЕИ - Most likely I began to feel somewhat satiated. I had achieved everything that I wanted: I became the Olympic champion, won the World Championship, and was first to subjugate the 5-meter height... Further everything would go in a vicious circle, monotonically, with already familiar sensations. It was necessary to either put away the pole forever or to attempt to pull myself out from this circle. I required a new push, a new motivation if you want - some challenge to myself.
I said: "Lena, at 23 years it is somewhat early to place a cross on your competitive career. It is necessary to change something radical, but to remain in the sport and to please yourself and those who you love." I explained to Yevgeny Vasilyevich that I could no longer be trained by him; that he also had achieved everything with me that it was possible to dream. But further, from my point of view, a blind alley loomed before us. Maybe this sounds paradoxical, but precisely because we know each other too well, it subsequently became necessary to brake up this fruitful joint operation.
СЭ - How did Trofimov perceive all this?
ЕИ - When we parted, it was normal. It seemed that he correctly understood me. I thanked Yevgeny Vasilyevich for everything that he had done for me, and I said that I thus far didn’t know with whom I would train.
СЭ - You did not feel that your words of steel had hurt your trainer?
ЕИ - I did not feel that. "Well, okay, I understand everything", said Trofimov. There were no hysterics. I thought, he actually understood it all correctly...
СЭ - Why then, far from the latter, did he publicly begin to accuse people of the light-athletics world, who allegedly brought down his student from the true course?
ЕИ - I was not brought down if I wanted this myself. I am a sufficiently adult person to make independent decisions. And in this case, this was a considered decision. I was advised by my parents and sister. I discussed about my feelings with them.
СЭ - And what is the result?
ЕИ - Well, it is premature to speak about the result. On the contrary, everything is only beginning: a new trainer, new managers, and new working conditions. But the situation that was before, that I have concluded.
СЭ - This is true, why do you now have two foreign managers?
ЕИ - Yes. The Swede, Daniel Vesfold, deals with the sport side of my activity, and the Swiss, Andreas Mettsler from the Podium company – advertising.
СЭ - What is the significance for you of the reaction to everything that occurred, by the familiar and unknown people around you?
ЕИ - This is a secondary matter. Sport is arranged correctly: there will be results and there will be understanding by those surrounding.
СЭ - World records in light athletics are well paid; therefore it is understandable why you raise the bar by only one centimeter every time. Bubka, without having serious rivals in his time, did the same. But after the completion of his career he acknowledged that by doing so, he did not reach his "ceiling". Don’t you fear this? And generally, doesn’t so rational an approach contradict the romantics of sport?
ЕИ - Look what is implied by romantics. For me first of all, the quantity of world records is more important, not the height, which as a result will prove to be only the latest. The matter involves not only the mercantile side of the question, although this is important, because one’s sport life is not too long. But people will remember – yes forgive me this flight of fantasy – a 50-time world record-breaker, but it will not be important for them at what height each record was broken. For history only the "cosmic" boundaries have a value, such as 6 meters for men or 5 meters for women.
СЭ - Doesn’t the absence of serious competition in the female pole embarrass you?
ЕИ - In the first place, I don’t completely agree with this, since the Polish sportswoman Anna Rogowska recently greatly improved...
СЭ - ...and now she lags behind you "only" by 25 centimeters...
ЕИ - ...and in the second place, entering the competitions, I am always nervous. It means I feel the presence of rivals - at least until specific heights.
СЭ - Svetlana Feofanova, who sat out the last season, does she not intend to return to competition?
ЕИ - I don’t know, I don’t associate with her.
СЭ - What is new in your pre-seasonal preparation?
ЕИ - It’s new already that my trainings take place in different places: the first gathering was in Monaco, the second - in Italy and the third now in Donetsk.
СЭ - How did you hook up with Petrov?
ЕИ - I rang him from Volgograd and requested a consultation. Vitaliy Afanasevich was greatly surprised when I reported that I was splitting from my trainer and intended to start again from the beginning. Initially he didn’t even believe me: he thought I was playing a trick. “But perhaps you will explain everything on the telephone?” I went to Monaco, where Petrov carried out training sessions with his student, the Italian ex-world champion Gibilisco. We began to work little by little; we got to know each other. In the beginning of December he invited me to Formia, and there we decided that Petrov would be my new trainer on a continual basis.
СЭ - Did Bubka play some role in all this?
ЕИ - We negotiated without Bubka. Sergey Nazarovich was upset that the world record holder remained without a trainer, however for him it was not so important precisely with whom I would work, provided that I would certainly begin.
СЭ - Your impressions from training with Petrov?
ЕИ - It is interesting work, directed, as we say, at the circulation of all muscle groups. The meticulousness with which Vitaliy Afanasevich approaches each exercise sometimes simply enraptures me. I am curious about some new nuances in technique to which he has me dedicated.
СЭ - You’ve already jumped with the pole?
ЕИ - Thus far only short takeoffs - to 4.60. Higher Petrov doesn’t allow. He says it’s still not time.
СЭ - You are not going to change to more rigid poles?
ЕИ - If this happens, then only in the summer. I will jump with my customary numbers in the winter.
СЭ - Your winter calendar is already full?
ЕИ - The competitive season will begin here for me, in Donetsk, on 12 February at the "Pole-vault Stars" tournament. Then - competitions in Birmingham and Lievin, and in March the Indoor World Championship in Moscow.
СЭ - Where you will celebrate the New Year?
ЕИ - As always, at home, in Volgograd. With mom, dad, and my sister. This is a family holiday.
СЭ - You have gifts for everyone?
ЕИ - It is compulsory. What, I will not say. It will be ridiculous if they learn everything from the newspaper.
СЭ - What must a new-year gift be?
ЕИ - Any gift must be sincere, as they say, from the heart. I recognize only useful gifts, not the trinkets, about which you immediately forget. "Never look a gift horse in the mouth" – this is not my saying. For example, I collect magnets to decorate refrigerators. I bring them from the different countries. If someone gives one to me, it’s clear that he knew me previously, and then it makes me glad. Even though it’s a trifle, it is necessarily dear.
СЭ - For how long did you believe in Grandfather Frost?
ЕИ - For very long - until fifteen years. I did not thus far see present life, which is very distant from the new-year fairy tale.
СЭ - What is more in your nature - rational or emotional?
ЕИ - I always strive to be flexible, however, emotional to begin with, and nevertheless sometimes mercurial. My dad is from Dagestan, and mom is Russian, a young Cossack (she laughs). This mixture is sometimes dangerously explosive. And what a mechanism I am, this is accurate.
СЭ - How fussy are you about food?
ЕИ - In general, pretty fussy. Not in the sense that I prefer some gastronomical delicacies. But my food must be wholesome and natural. I eat nothing fatty or fried. Once, during the transition period from gymnastics to light athletics, it was necessary to torture myself with diets, since I weighed 70 kg. I now hold my fighting weight at 63 - 64 kg without any effort. Apparently my metabolism finally adjusted and it requires nothing "forbidden". Sometimes I allow myself, let us say, a pastry; however, I don’t experience cravings for such things.
СЭ - "Bubka in a skirt" – how do you like this nickname?
ЕИ - To be honest, not much.
СЭ - Why?
ЕИ - It is too rubbed over from frequent use. So they called in their time Bartova, then Balakhonova, then Feofanova... It’s as if Isinbayeva is just next in the sequence. Although in reality I, like Bubka himself, am unique.
СЭ - Why didn’t you continue preparing for the season in Formia?
ЕИ - It is a very well organized way of life there; however the facility is too small. Yes it is even desirable to feel the winter, to live under the usual conditions.
СЭ - They say that after being frightened that you would never return to Volgograd, the city authorities urgently allotted an apartment to you...
ЕИ - On the Internet I read something absurd: supposedly they gave not only an apartment to me, but they even offered the post of chairman of the sports committee. Thanks, but not necessary. I bought my apartment with my own money. And I am not going anywhere. I will always represent Volgograd and Russia.
СЭ - If you were asked to fill out the form for "СЭ" to determine the best the athlete in Russia for last year, who would you put in the first place?
ЕИ - (after pause.) It is difficult to answer this question - it is immediately possible to run up against the charge of immodesty.
СЭ - But you do not pretend modesty!
ЕИ - Then I would put two in first place. Isinbayeva and Tanya Lebedeva, who was the first Russian to win the light-athletics "Golden League". This is a very difficult tournament, and is completely comparable with my 5 meter leap and victory at the World Championships.
СЭ - Excuse the indiscreet question: in the new year do you foresee no changes in your personal life?
ЕИ - You mean marriage? No. This can’t happen before I complete my competitive career. Understand, I am arranged such that I cannot divide myself in two equal parts, between family and sport. For me a question stands by the edge: one or the other. And no compromises!
СЭ - So how long will it be necessary for a potential aspirant for your hand and heart to wait?
ЕИ - According to my calculations, until 2012 - I want to compete in two more Olympiads. 30 – This is a normal age for marriage. However, all this thus far is just theory, not fact, that I will remain in competition for seven and a half more years.
СЭ - What do you expect from the new year?
ЕИ - On the eastern calendar my year now begins – fiery-red dog. But I expect that it will be, at a minimum, no worse than last year.
СЭ - And at a maximum?
ЕИ - This is also personal, but I will tell. My younger sister Inna got married, and she and her husband plan an increase in their small family. I will be happy if this plan is carried out, so for me will appear a nephew or niece. It will be good to become aunt Lena in the new year!
Yuri YURIS
Donetsk
Edited to restore the text lost due to the old server's improper handling of non-ANSI text.
