POLE VAULTER • RUSSIA • 1982

Two-time Olympic Champion, three-time World Champion and four-time Indoor World Champion, World Record holder athlete

Best results

Personal best:

506 cm WR
2009, Zürich
(outdoor)

501 cm WR
2001, Stockholm
(indoor)

28x World Record holder
(15x outdoor, 13x indoor)

Olympic Games:

2x 1. place
2004, Athens: 491 cm
2008, Beijing: 505 cm

–

1x 3. place
2012, London: 470 cm

World Championships:

3x 1. place
2005, Helsinki: 501 cm
2007, Osaka: 480 cm
2013, Moscow: 489 cm

–

1x 3. place
2003, Paris: 465 cm

Indoor World Championships:

4x 1. place
2004, Budapest: 486 cm
2006, Moscow: 480 cm
2008, Valencia: 475 cm
2012, Istanbul: 480 cm

1x 2. place
2003, Birmingham: 460 cm

–

At the Jumping Gala:

1x participant
2000 – 403 cm – 3. place

The personal story of museum founder János Angyal about this pair of sport shoes

The first Youth World Championships in Athletics was hosted in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 1999, where I had the honour of being the team leader of Team Hungary. The ladies’ pole vault event was won by the then 17-year-old Yelena Isinbayeva with 410 centimetres. I could already see that she was a fantastic talent, so I made the decision to bring her to the Millenium Jumping Gala in 2000. With the help of her Hungarian manager, Attila Spiriev we could settle for an agreement. With her 403 centimetres jump she could stand on the third place of the podium in Somoskő on June 17, behind Elmarie Gerryts, South-African winner with 433 centimetres and Zsuzsa Szabó, second placed Hungarian who also jumped 403 centimetres.

After the competition she and her coach, Evgeni Trofimov requested to stay two more nights at us because they could only travel to the next competition then. I happily fulfilled their request: they could rest and prepare at Hotel Medves in Salgóbánya, and I had the experience to discuss professional matters with Trofimov, one of the world’s best pole vault coaches..

Yelena did not forget the days she spent here and gave me – with the assistance of Attila Spiriev in 2005 – the shoes she wore when she jumped her world record of 501 centimetres. These shoes are the jewel of our Museum as their owner bested the world record in pole vault 28 times (15 times the outdoor and 13 times the indoor record) and won every title an athlete can win over their career.