Yelena Isinbayeva celebrates with a back flop (© Getty Images)
Helsinki, FinlandFrom the VIP tribune of Helsinki’s Olympic stadium men’s Olympic champion Tim Mack was in a great vantage to view the women’s Pole Vault final at the 10th IAAF World Championships. Here is his insight into what went on in yet another Isinbayeva foray into history…
“From the outset, I knew that the winds looked pretty tough early on, and that it would have a big impact. At 4.60, and again at 4.70 the girls were having some difficulties."
"I was impressed with the Chinese girl, Gao Shuying. She looked like she jumped just what she needed to jump to get here. Anna Rogowska was a surprise. I was expecting that she was going to be there until the end. But Pyrek really pulled it off."
"And of course, Yelena Isinbayeva. It’s just going to be a freak thing if something goes wrong for her. Right now, five metres doesn’t look very high at all. It almost looks like what 5.60 or 5.70 would look like to me. It just doesn’t look that tough."
"Even with the winds, I think the track was fast enough where if the wind was dead, or maybe just a little bit in your face, the track would kind of even that out. So it ended up not being that much of a factor for someone like Isinbayeva. It did look like the wind got a lot of the girls early on though."
"But I’m definitely impressed with Yelena. I think she just probably switched to a stiffer pole after her first jump. Then she just blew it away. That’s what it looked like from my vantage point, anyway. It was probably that simple. Just go to a stiffer pole and do the exact same jump."
"To me it looked like she could jump 5.10 to 5.15 right now. With good conditions, 5.20 isn’t unreasonable. I think she’s probably jumping 5.20 in practice. If five metres looked that easy, I think she’s definitely jumping that high in training. It was pretty impressive. I don’t know what she’s got on everyone else. Technically, she’s quite far away."
"She made it look quite simple too. Starting with 4.50, then 4.60, 4.75 and 5.01. A pretty easy day.”
Tim Mack for the IAAF
