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Yelena Isinbayeva

The Olympic Games, or Olympics, is an international multi-sport event taking place every four years which comprises of summer and winter games. Though the first ancient games were held in 776 B.C, the modern games started from 1896.The unity of the 5 continents is shown on the Olympic flag by five colorful intertwined rings of red, blue, green, yellow, and black, created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin to represent atleast one color of the participating country’s national flag.

Yelena Isinbayeva was born June on 3, 1982 in Volgograd. She is a Russian pole vaulter. She won the 2004 Olympic Gold Medal with a new World Record, was elected Female Athlete of the Year by the IAAF, International Association of Athletics Federations twice in 2004 and 2005 and has set 18 world records. On July 22, 2005, she became the first female pole vaulter to clear 5.00 metres. At the age of 24 she is seen as the best female pole vaulter in history. She has already crowned herself 5-time major 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, Yelena 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. 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 short of compatriot Svetlana Feofanova's gold medal winning jump.

In 2003, she was another year of progression and saw Yelena win the European under 23 Championships gold with 4.65 m. She went onto break the world record clearing 4.82 m on July 13 at a meeting in Gateshead, England which had made her the favourite to take gold at the World Championships the following month, but lack of technique saw her only win bronze with Feofanova taking gold and Becker, this time, pipping her for the silver. 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.

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