Yelena Isinbayeva

Great People rise and shine on big occasions.

Yesterday belonged to Yelena Isinbayeva. The absolutely stunning 22 yr old
Russian was the WR holder at 4.9 m in Pole Vault for women. However yesterday
night or rather today early morning, the early scores were being set by a
confident Anna Rogowska from Poland and another Polish athlete, Birek.

Yelena did vaults of 4.55 and 4.65 on 1st tries. Then she fouled 4.7 and 4.75. She
took a courageous decision to skip 2nd and 3rd tries for both 4.7 and 4.75 and
try 4.8 on her last attempt. At that point Anna Rogowska had cleared 4.75 on 1st
try and was sitting pretty. Also was Feofanova with a similar record. If Yelena
had fouled she would have had to contend with a bronze since she hadn't cleared
4.75 on 1st attempt while both Anna and Feofanova had.

Then Yelena literally raised the bar. She looked around and kept muttering words
of motivation/prayer to herself. She also put some solution onto her palms for
gripping the pole.Then she went and cleared 4.8. Feofanova followed with the
same. Anna Rogowska fouled at 4.85.

Yelena shrieked as she passed the bar safely in midair realising that her grit
was in its place.

Then Yelena looked around and went for 4.85. She cleared. Then followed the
familiar shriek in mid air. Feofanova who was watching began to sulk as she now
had to meet or beat this. Yelena went ahead and covered her head with a
towel/jersey while Feofanova vaulted. Sadly Feofanova fouled 4.85 and had also
fouled 4.8 earlier.

Then the attention shifted to the gritty Yelena. The cameras panned to show her
as now the gold was hers for the taking. What would she do next? Like the
legendary Bubka, this woman now went on to beat herself.

She looked mildly embarassed while the cameras showed her wiping herself. I
mean everything she was doing was on TV, in her moment of truth. I mention this as
this woman looked so resplendent and human.

Now she eased out, looked around smiling as if confused with what to do next. .
She smiled and then began her muttering/praying routine. Her face betrayed a
certain incredulity at what she was attempting next. She raised her eyebrows as
she muttered and then smiled mischieviously like a kid caught stealing cookies.
She went for 4.91 considering that the WR at 4.9 was already hers.

Very few top athletes breaking WRs look so relaxed. The only such instance I
have seen is Shawn Crawford who audaciously started a conversation about 8 m
before the 100m sprint finish with Gatlin, while the rest of the field was
atleast a few paces behind! Although Gatlin won the finals, I guess Crawford
would also do well in the future.

And by God, did Yelena deliver. Before she took off the judges stopped to
recheck the height of the bar once again. She then smeared that solution for
gripping.

And then she went for it, soared well above 4.91 (She's reported to have cleared
5m in practice) and shrieked in mid air, cried and then landed, in that order.
This time even the somewhat unfortunate Feofanova broke into a genuine smile of
appreciation for her compatriot.

This spectacle was watched attentively by the other competitors who were
watching like in one of those exhibition events that Bubka used to take part in,
where he had only himself to beat!

The last time one felt so thrilled was Michael Johnson ran my favourite race of
all time in 200m at Atlanta when he ran the 2nd 100m in 9.2 s after running the
1st 10.12, to set a time that will perhaps stay till the next Olympics.