Two-time Olympic pole vault champion and three-time IAAF World Athlete of the Year Yelena Isinbayeva from Russia announced her retirement at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro on Friday (19).

When Yelena Isinbayeva makes her return to action in February, more than 900 days will have passed since her last competition.

The six newly elected representatives of the IAAF Athletes’ Commission are as follows (listed in alphabetical order): Valerie Adams, Mutaz Essa Barshim, Yelena Isinbayeva, Koji Murofushi, Christian Olsson and Andreas Thorkildsen, the IAAF announced on Sunday (30).

There have been national junior championships for athletes dating back to the 1920s, with the former Czechoslovakia having organised what is believed to be the first in 1921. But having a global event – the IAAF World Junior Championships – that puts young talent on display is a relatively recent innovation.

IAAF World Athletes of the Year Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce are among the nominees for the 2014 Laureus World Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards.

Jamaica's sprint star Usain Bolt has been voted the AIPS Best Athlete of the Year for the second year in a row, and the fourth time in total, following his other wins in 2008 and 2009, announced the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) on Monday (29).

Statisticians A Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava look back on the best jumps performances of the year with Julin covering the men’s events and Jalava the women’s.

The IAAF Ambassadors Press Conference, marking 30 years of the IAAF World Championships, featured two IAAF Ambassadors, 1997 World 400m Hurdles champion Stephane Diagana and 1997 World 200m champion Ato Boldon. Recently-crowned World Pole Vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was also there as a guest on Thursday (15).

They came, they saw, they went home happy.

There were distance finals, sprint finals, throws finals, and even a race walk, but Tuesday was the day Yelena Isinbayeva wrote, stage managed, and played the starring role at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow.

The Sydney 2000 Olympics will be remembered for Cathy Freeman’s gold on ‘Magic Monday’. Last year’s Olympic Games saw Jessica Ennis-Hill take gold on ‘Super Saturday’. And now another poster girl for a global championships, Yelena Isinbayeva, triumphed in front of her home crowd on what could be remembered as ‘Terrific Tuesday’.

Tuesday’s action on day four of the IAAF World Championships may be the most emblematic of the entire meet, if only because it features the primary component of the Championships’ logo.