The first article I’d like to show you was written after her five meter clearance in London, but before the World Championships in Helsinki..
On 9 Aug 2005, Спорт-Экспресс (Sport-Express) wrote:"SPORT-EXPRESS" AND INTERSPORT PRESENT
THE BEST ATHLETE OF RUSSIA
Yelena ISINBAYEVA - №1 during JULY
FLIGHTS FOR THE HISTORY LESSONS
Igor RABINER, 9 August 2005
The matter was last week. As usual our correspondents at the month’s end carried out interrogations of celebrities – experts for "SE", who participate in determining the best athlete of the month. The number of the football legend Valentin Ivanov was set up. They began to transfer July candidates. But immediately after the second of Ivanov’s name, a speaker interrupted, with his unique hoarse voice, demanding the question: "But where is Isinbayeva?!"
Yes to where could she disappear, Valentin Kozmich?!
The 23-year-old Volgograd pole vaulter had slipped the mind of everyone – not only the experts. They adore her independently of their form of sport (or the absence of the same), their age, office, or kind of activity. Godly nectar from her records and charm is capable of disarming the most inveterate cynic. Beauty alone, as we saw from the example of Anna Kournikova, is insufficient. Some records are needed as well. Isinbayeva has everything. For example, fearlessness – both in words and in reality. Well who else in Athens, at the beginning of the Olympic Games, could state at the press conference: "First I will win gold, and then I will establish a world record"?! And then, the main thing, to make both come true?
Then there is witticism. When we conversed in May of last year, in Volgograd, I asked how she felt about her prospects for being photographed for a periodical like Playboy. Her instantaneous answer slew me outright: "To undress is necessary only when one’s popularity falls".
Her popularity then, before the Olympiad, was in its infancy. We conversed in a typical Internet-cafe near her home, immediately after a training session. Yelena needed to rest her feet, and she stretched them out to the low, almost to the floor, window-sill. Immediately a security guard approached – he did not know the fourfold world record holder at that time – and ordered her to immediately remove her feet. Isinbayeva was brought up neither to identify herself nor to begin arguing.
Then she was not yet accustomed to the glory: when she returned from one of her trainings on a streetcar, a "Rotor" fan recognized her and shouted: "Here is Yelena Isinbayeva!" In panic she cried: "That’s not me!" and she jumped from the streetcar at the following stop. Lord, just think: where is "Rotor" now – and where is Isinbayeva?
On 22 July 2005, before starting her run and rocketing into air above London’s "Crystal Palace" stadium in order to become the first in the world to take the five-meter height, she whispered her age-old pre-jump prayer. Whispered it with a smile. Even while storming such heights, Yelena never forgets that she is a woman. That is the reason for her enormous attraction.
This historical leap fell down upon the light-athletics world like snow on our heads. After that it seemed like Lena’s head was completely surrounded by a halo. Everyone was assured that she would take the records to five meters (yes even after them) one centimeter at a time – well who would think to forego 50 thousand dollars, which the IAAF pays for each world record? Yes even Isinbayeva herself, 11 months ago in Athens, answered my question without zeal in the mixed zone, why did she not try to take five meters there, at the Olympiad: "Certainly, it was possible to jump. But you know, I am not very rich yet, I want to earn a little money. So I will add one centimeter. Nine still remained until five meters". Then she said the same to the foreign reporters...
But here in London – 4.96 and immediately 5.00! Why was the sober calculation, for which, by the way, no one ever condemned Isinbayeva (on the contrary, we thanked her for her frankness), suddenly changed into this impulse? Indeed, still now the sportswoman does not have any personal advertising contracts, which would make her independent from the bonus for records. Here is a most intriguing question. One thing is known: Sergey Bubka in an interview for "SE" mentioned plans about which his associate knew, and that he could not miss the chance to honor the historical moment by his personal presence.
Is the explanation technological, whose authorship belongs to her trainer, Yevgeny Trofimov? In Helsinki, at the World Championship, it is very difficult to jump five meters due to the complex wind patterns. And in Stockholm, where Isinbayeva competed immediately after London, the situation is similar. In this sense England was more convenient. In the trainer’s opinion it is worthwhile to examine the statistics: in Scandinavia Yelena has established not one world record, whereas in Great Britain – already seven. The previous "zero" – 4.90 – she cleared on 30 July 2004 at the same "Crystal Palace". Yes even her first world record took place in the English city of Gateshead. Just think: from 13 July 2003, when she took 4.82 there, to 22 July 2005, in some two years and 9 days, this improbable sportswoman has raised the bar by 18 centimeters!
But it would be hypocrisy to declare that all believed exclusively in the sport explanation for this hasty five-meter exploit. Immediately quite sufficiently skeptical bookkeepers were found. Who doesn’t know the human (and particularly Russian) habit to count the money in a stranger’s pocket? There were whispers that unknown tight purses in the wealthy capital of England, without advertising, made a proposal to Lena that she could not refuse. Specifically for the "five". Why, allegedly, would Isinbayeva voluntarily fine herself 150 thousand, if they did not offer in London some giddy super-bonus?
Yelena completely denied all these rumors, explaining: "Everything is standard, no bonuses whatsoever beyond the rules. I simply couldn’t drag it out any longer, it was beyond my power. With similar mercantilism it can turn out sideways: with no money, there will be no records".
To believe her or not? When I conversed with her last December for the new-year edition of "SE" (Remember, our newspaper recognized Isinbayeva as the Athlete of the Year, and I had little doubt that the title would be defended), the jumper uttered the programmatic phrase which we used for the title: "I very much want to immortalize myself!" I added: "so that children will be taught in their history lessons at school".
Thus, maybe it is not worthwhile to search for financial stimuli where a healthy human ambition reigns? Perhaps envious folk, for whom all conversations and explanations are reduced to money in view of its absence, simply judge the great sportswoman based upon themselves?
We may never learn the truth. But I see no reason to disbelieve Isinbayeva’s explanations. Because, as it was long ago noted, the genuinely large sportsmen grow up and gradually cease to live in that gripping but limited space of the present day, and they become philosophers. Like Aleksandr Karelin, who’s every phrase after a certain moment began to draw toward aphorism. Apparently sport is a high manifestation of selfishness, since you want to win and the fact that another wants this in exactly the same manner is of no concern. Like Bubka said to Isinbayeva in London, that now, after five meters, she had reached a new orbit not only of results, but also philosophy of pole vaulting. Like Aleksandr Popov, whose quotation Tatiana Lebedeva cut from the newspaper and presented to Isinbayeva, and which she cited herself as most inspiring during her appearances in Athens.
Such records as this cannot be achieved only by learning the motions of the legs and body, however talented the athlete and however shrewd the trainer. They are possible only with the comprehension of the fact that you create. It is impossible to take off into the cosmos, thinking about the perishable. If Isinbayeva, running up to her sequential record leaps, were calculating the fees in her mind – she would on no account have subjugated these heights.
Even last December I sensed philosophical notes in her discussion. Moreover precisely while considering the theme of "one centimeter" additions to the records.
"Understand, it is not only a matter of money," she said then. "I spoke about this with Sergey Bubka – and found confirmation with his thoughts. If I immediately jumped five meters, then I fear that I would repeat the fate of Bob Beamon. Why "fear"? Because they remember him for only one record – yes, a fantastic record, but only one. When you very rapidly attain some improbable goal, then you don’t know what to do after it. But I want to put off this moment, to take pleasure from the process of reaching it. I want to gradually approach the great objective and constantly remind everyone about myself. Indeed there are even many Olympic champions, who they don’t remember now. So that they'll remember – it’s necessary to prove your class all the time.
I assume that someone saw in these reflections (as you see, this is a deep woman) contradiction with her London five-meter blitzkrieg. But I don’t see it here. First, any thinking person characteristically develops their views – evolves them. In the second place, Isinbayeva has so far already established 17 world records, so she reminds one of herself more than constantly.
It means that she simply believes in the fact that her potential is much higher than five meters. And it is possible to eat a few "centimeters" in order to draw nearer to her cherished dream, without damage to her career. Not randomly, Yelena now calls the smashing of Bubka’s record – 35 world records – her global purpose. In this case trainer Trofimov somehow mentioned that his student was capable of jumping to 5.20...
One thing became clear even after Athens: Isinbayeva is not "satiated". Olympic gold with the world record, on top of that achieved in a dramatic fight with Svetlana Feofanova (do you remember her heart-stopping third attempt at 4.80?), she could fling herself into the storm of euphoria, congratulations, banquets and fashionable parties for a long time.
The answer from Isinbayeva was the trip to Brussels 10 days later – and a new world record. And then – a full-weight winter season with the four additional planetary achievements indoors. These Isinbayevs are similar as a family: not in vain her father, Gadzhi Gafanovich, despite his daughter’s prosperity, continues to work as a sanitary engineer-mechanic in Volgograd. In the monasteries of this "cell community" to rest is not accepted...
"And what would I do for the entire winter, if I refused?" she passionately said to me in December. "No already. Many told me that devastation would begin after the victory at the Olympiad. It is said that once the central objective in your life is achieved, you do not know what is further. But for me everything occurred differently. I am young, and I want to jump higher and higher. When you enter the sector and they declare to the stadium: 'Yelena Isinbayeva, Olympic champion' – do you know how this thrills? Indeed I am still not the summer world champion, not the winter champion of Europe. So these titles aren’t bad, and there are still sufficient unattained goals..."
Since then she has already won the winter championship of Europe – of course with a world record. Now in turn comes the summer world championship. The last serious title, it seems, not yet in Yelena’s collection.
Interesting: into what layers of the atmosphere will Isinbayeva fly in Helsinki?
Obviously I’m not the only guy around who’s rather taken with the young lady.
Although his claim that no one condemned Isi for her “sober calculationâ€Â
