Averbukh retires (Israel)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.european-athletics.org/index ... 9&Itemid=2

European Pole Vault champion Averbukh retires

17.07.2009

Alex Averbukh of Israel on his way to winning the
Pole Vault gold at the European Athletics Championships,
2002, in Munich. Photo by Picture Alliance
Israel's Alex Averbukh, the 2002 and 2006 European Athletics Championships Pole Vault gold medallist, has decided to retire and will not defend his title in Barcelona next year.

Averbukh, 34, cited a combination of injuries and declining form as the reason for his decision to put away his poles, which he formally announced after finishing second at the Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

""I'm not going to the World Championships. I want to bid goodbye here in Israel," he told local media.

"That's it, it's finished. It's difficult, but I am coming into a new life. I don't know what I'm going to do exactly. I am going to take one month, two months to prepare for the future, for work," added Averbukh.

Averbukh was an Israeli athletics icon.

In addition to his European triumphs, he won bronze and then silver at the 1999 and 2001 World Championships and also took the 2000 European Indoor title. He made the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games finals and went close to taking medals at the World Indoor Championships on two occasions, finishing fourth in both 2001 and 2006.

He was born in the Russian region of Siberia and was the 1997 Russian Decathlon champion but received Israeli citizenship two years later.

His medal at the 1999 World Championships in Sevilla was Israel's first in a global athletics competition and he became Israel's first European outdoor athletics champion in Munich three years later, an occasion charged with emotion.

After receiving his gold medal, Averbukh wept uncontrollably while the Israeli national anthem was playing in Munich's Olympic Stadium, almost 30 years to the day to the murder of the 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in the same city.

Averbukh set six Israeli Pole Vault records, with his best of 5.93m coming in Madrid in 2003. He had jumped 5.61m earlier this season and admitted that he could still have qualified for major championships but added that he wanted to bow out on home soil.

[VTechVaulter]

it was pretty interesting actually. i am in tel aviv at the moment and jumped in his last meet. he opened at 4.95, made it easy, and immediately after someone came running over to the track with his pole bag, he put the pole away. bowed, and took a half lap with the flag. even the meet promoters didn't know he was doing it.. but he ended his career on a make