“I knew that I can jump 2.36. It was very much on the cards. And I did not expect Martin to achieve so great a jump,” said a new outstanding Russian high jumper Yaroslav Rybakov.
“I am not satisfied with a silver medal. It seemed to me that we were winning the competition. That is I was so stressed after the successful jump of our rival. I have beaten him at the European cup and nobody thought that he would be the world champion.”
Yaroslav was born in a sports family, his grandmother was a high jumper, and his grandfather was a strong all-round sportsman. Yaroslav says that sport has always been a part of his family history. He is coached by his father Vladimir, while his mother was a specialist in combined events.
In the beginning it was very difficult for Yaroslav to find his event in athletics, he tried the hurdles and tried the long jump. But his father began creating a high jumper.
“Now I know that I have talent, but sometimes my father coaches me very hard and even here in Edmonton on the eve of the competition we made very serious technical training - maybe we needed more time to reach top form, maybe I warmed up too heavily before the jumps. I failed to win and it is only my fault.”
Rybakov has a strange relationship with the other Russian silver medalist, Viacheslav Voronin. They are not friends and sometimes do not speak with each other. Voronin begins to talk with his friend and main rival only after stressful competitions, like it was in Edmonton.
“All this year was a crazy race against time,” said Viacheslav in Edmonton. “I needed to rework my jumps. I was doing a great job but could not achieve good results before the World Championships. The time was passing and my coach Aleksandr Burt decided to make extreme and rather dangerous work, which is not recommended for the normal training. We call it to beat out the jump.”
They were making more then 40 jumps over 2,30 and 2,31. But the results appeared only in Edmonton at the qualification. Voronin beat out his first good jump when he cleared 2.27. He was happy to win a silver after failure in Sydney, while his coach Aleksandr Burt was blaming himself that they did not do everything in time.
