JAPAN: ATHLETICS - Russian pole vault World Record holder Yelena Isinbayeva confident ahead of World Athletics Championships in Osaka

Record ID: 465478

  • Title: JAPAN: ATHLETICS - Russian pole vault World Record holder Yelena Isinbayeva confident ahead of World Athletics Championships in Osaka
  • Date: 25th August 2007
  • Summary: DRAWING OF ISINBAYEVA; NEXT TO POLE (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAEJOV67GFKO8EOON4FS3HRS5H8
  • Story Text: World pole vault record holder Yelena Isinbayeva and 400 metres champion Jeremy Wariner are on course to beat world records when defending their world title in Osaka.
    Russian world pole vault record holder Yelena Isinbayeva may be the most confident athlete in sport.
    "I know if I do my best, it is impossible for somebody to beat me," the Olympic and world champion said at a news conference in Osaka, Japan on Friday (August 24).
    "There's no chance for anybody," she added. "Sorry, it's like this."
    She is so big a favourite in the 11th world championships which begin on Saturday (August 25), that she professes no concern for the competition.
    "I don't care about my rivals," she said. "More important and more dangerous is myself."
    The former gymnast has not lost a final this year, going 11 for 11. In three years, she has been beaten only three times in 42 competitions. Twice the losses came because she no-heighted. The other loss was on a countback.
    In meets where she has cleared a height, no one has jumped higher since July 4, 2004, according to Track & Field News magazine.
    Twenty times she has set a world record with 11 of them coming outdoors.
    Her ambition is to raise the bar to 5.16 or 5.20 metres and beat former Ukranian Sergei Bubka's string of 35 men's pole vault records.
    But her record machine has slowed in recent years. Not since the Helsinki world championships, when she cleared 5.01 metres, has she raised the bar.
    The reason, in part, has been the lack of competition, she said.
    Sometimes she may wait two to three hours to begin vaulting while competitors fall by the side.
    "That is more difficult," she said, "but pole vault is still my passion."
    American Jeremy Wariner, the 2005 world 400-metre champion, also has his eye on a world record.
    "Honestly I am not really looking at the world record, like I said before, when I am on the track I am always going for it, that's my main goal, to run each race like I am going for it. But if it happens at the world championship it happens, if not, I will just go and try to get it at the next meet or the next meet after that or next year," said Wariner.
    Wariner, whose uses Johnson's coach Clyde Hart, says he has been following the training programme his agent Johnson used before setting the record of 43.18 seconds in Seville eight years ago.
    The speedy Texan clocked 44.02 seconds in Osaka in May, then sprinted a sizzling 43.50 seconds in Stockholm this month.
    "Well I've already ran a 44 flat on it, so I can run even faster than that I guarantee you I can run faster than that. What it is I have no idea, we will find out later on this week," Wariner told reporters.
    The men's 400 metres heats at the world championships are on August 28 with the final three days later.
    Historically, the U.S. has dominated the men's 400 metres at the world championships, winning 16 medals, including seven golds. The U.S has finished one-two in the 400 four times, but has never swept all three medals.
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