DOB: June 3 1982
Height: 174 cm
Weight: 65 kg
Coach: Vitaliy Petrov
Titles:
World youth Championships (1999)
World Junior Championships (2000)
European Junior Championships (2001)
European Under 23 Championships (2003)
World Indoor Championships (2004)
Summer Olympics (Athens, 2004)
IAAF World Athletics Final (2004)
IAAF Female Athlete of the Year 2004, 2005
European Indoor Championships (2005)
World Championships (2005)
IAAF World Athletics Final (2005)
World Indoor Championships (2006)
European Championships (2006)
World Cup (2006)
Pole Vault Stars tournament (2007)
Summer Olympics (Beijing, 2008)
Current Records:
World record (outdoor) 506 cm (Zurich, Switzerland, Aug 28, 2009), World record (indoor) 500 cm (Donetsk, Ukraine, Feb 15, 2009), World record (outdoor) 505 cm (Beijing, China, 18 August 2008), World record (outdoor) 504 cm (Monte-Carlo, Monaco, 29 July 2008), World record (outdoor) 503 cm (Rome, Italy, July 13, 2008), World record (outdoor) 501 cm (Helsinki, Finland, Aug 12, 2005), World record (indoor) 493 cm (Donetsk, Ukraine, Feb 12, 2006), Olympic Games record 491cm (Athens, Greece, Aug 24, 2004), World Championships record 486 cm (Budapest, Hungary, Mar 6, 2004), European Championships record (indoor) 490 cm (Madrid, Spain, Mar 6, 2005), European Championships record (outdoor) 480 cm (Goteborg, Sweden, Aug 12, 2006)
Elena Isinbaeva is the best female pole vaulter in history. She has already crowned herself 5-time major champion (Olympic, World outdoor and indoor champion and European outdoor and indoor champion) and became the first woman to clear the metric barrier of 5.00 m.
In her first big competition, the 1998 World Junior Championships in Annecy, France, she jumped 4,00 m but this left her 10 cm away from the medal placings. In 1999, Yelena improved on this at the World Youth Games when she cleared 4,10 m to take her first gold medal.
The following year at the World Junior's she again took first place clearing 4,20 m ahead of German Annika Becker. The same year the women's pole vault made its debut as an Olympic event in Sydney, Australia where Stacy Dragila of United States took gold.
2001 saw another gold medal, this time at the European Junior Championships with a winning height of 4,40 m She continued to improve in this relatively new event and 2002 saw her clear 4,55 m at the European Championships finishing 5 cm's. short of compatriot Svetlana Feofanova's gold medal winning jump. 2003 was another year of progression and saw Yelena win the European Under 23 Championships gold with 4,65 m. She went on to break the world record clearing 4,82 m in Gateshead, England 2004 saw the women's pole vault really start to mature as an event and during a meeting at Donetsk, Ukraine, Yelena set a new indoor worlds best, with a height of 4,83 m only to see Feofanova increase this by a single centimetre the following week. The following month at the World's Indoor in March, Yelena broke this with a gold medal winning jump of 4,86 m beating reigning indoor & outdoor champion Feofanova into bronze with reigning Olympic champion Dragila taking silver.
She set a huge amount of records in 2005 and 2006, became the first woman to jump over 5.00 meters in Helsinki in 2005.
In two months she managed to set three world records - in Rome, in Monte Carlo and on summer Olympics in Beijing.
At the Athletics World Championship in Berlin Elena sensationally failed to cover the starting height (4,75 and spare two attempts 4,80) and let the Polish Anna Rogowska become World Champion-2009 clearing 4,75.
After the fiasco at the World Championship the two times Olympic champion Elena set her twenty-seventh world record - 5,06 to showing that she is still best pole vaulter in the world.
Isinbaeva's current record is 5,06, set in Zurich at the IAAF Golden League tournament on 28 August 2009.
