Sergey Bubka

Sergey Nazarovich Bubka ( _ru. Сергей Назарович Бубка; _uk. Сергій Бубка - Serhiy Bubka; born December 4, 1963) is a retired Ukrainian pole vaulter. Repeatedly voted the world's best athlete, [cite web
url=http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/members/bio_uk.asp?id=103
accessdate=2008-07-13
title=Mr. Sergey BUBKA
author=International Olympic Committee
work=Official website of the Olympic Movement
quote=...voted world's best athlete on several occasions.] he represented the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

Bubka won 6 consecutive IAAF World Championships, an Olympics gold and broke the world record for men's pole vaulting 35 timescite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/low/athletics/1153086.stm |title=Bubka says farewell |accessdate=2007-08-26 |work=BBC News] (17 outdoor and 18 indoor records). He was the first to clear 6.0 metres and the first and only (as of August 2008) to clear 6.10 metres (20 ft).cite web|url=http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=I/ageGroup=N/season=0/gender=M/discipline=PV/legal=A/index.html|title=Top Lists: Pole Vault|accessdate=2007-08-29|publisher=IAAF.org (Indoor)] cite web|url=http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=O/ageGroup=N/season=0/gender=M/discipline=PV/legal=A/index.html|title=Top Lists: Pole Vault|accessdate=2007-08-29|publisher=IAAF.org (Outdoor)]

He holds the current outdoor world record of 6.14 metres (20 feet 1 3/4 inches), set on 31 July 1994 in Sestriere, Italy [ cite web|url=http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/gender=M/location=O/recordsType=WR/eventCatCode=/junior=N/area=/index.html |title=World Outdoor Records - Men |accessdate=2007-08-27 |publisher=IAAF.org ] and the current indoor world record of 6.15 meters, set on 21 February 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine. [ cite web|url=http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/records/gender=M/location=I/recordsType=WR/eventCatCode=/junior=N/area=/index.html |title=World Indoor Records - Men |accessdate=2007-08-27 |publisher=IAAF.org ]

Biography

Sergey Bubka was born and brought up in the city of Luhansk, Ukraine. His father was a soldier and his mother a medical assistant. He commented that neither of them were active in sports. He has an elder brother Vasiliy Bubka, who was also a pole vaulter. Vasiliy's personal best outdoors is 5.86 meters. Sergey had a ferocious competitive spirit which was channeled into multiple sports until he met the pole vault coach Vitaly Petrov. Bubka started pole vaulting at the age of 11, when he entered Dynamo Children and Youth Sports School in Voroshilovgrad, he was trained by Vitaly Petrov there. [ [http://www.e-motion.com.ua/news/4256.html Sergey Bubka - A Man With A Pole] ] In 1978, aged 15, Bubka moved to Donetsk, Ukraine, with his coach for better training facilities.

Pole vaulting career

Sergey Bubka entered international athletics in 1981 participating in the European Junior Championships where he reached 7th place. But the 1983 World Championships held in Helsinki proved to be his actual entry point to the mainstream world athletics, where a relatively unknown Bubka snatched the gold, clearing 5.70 metres (18 feet 8 inches). The years that followed witnessed the unparalleled dominance of Bubka, with him setting new records and standards in pole vaulting.

He set his first world record of 5.85m on 26 May 1984 which he improved to 5.88m a week later, and then to 5.90m a month later. He cleared 6.00 metres (19 feet 8 inches) for the first time on 13 July 1985 in Paris. This height had long been considered unattainable. With virtually no opponents, Bubka improved his own record over the next 10 years until he reached his career best and the current world record of 6.14 m (20 feet 1 3/4 inches) in 1994.

He was the first (and as of March 2008, the only) athlete ever to jump over 6.10 metres, in San Sebastián, Spain in 1991. He set the current world record of 6.14 metres in 1994 after some commentators had already predicted the decline of the great sportsman. Bubka increased the world record by 21 centimetres (8 inches) in the 4 years between 1984 and 1988, more than other pole vaulters had achieved in the previous 12 years. He cleared 6.00 meters or better on more than 44 occasions.

Bubka officially retired from his pole vault career in 2001. His son Sergei Bubka Jr. is a tennis player and is currently a regular in ATP's second string circuits. [cite web|url=http://www.newagebd.com/2006/apr/20/spt.html|title=Bubka takes to tennis|work=New Age Sports|publisher=Agence France-Presse, New Delhi|accessdate=2007-08-26]

IAAF World Championships

Bubka won the pole vault event in 6 consecutive IAAF World Championships In Athletics from 1983 to 1997:

Technique

Bubka possessed enormous strength, speed and gymnastic abilities. Reportedly his average speed during pole vaulting approach was 35.7 km/h (9.9 m/s, 22.2 mph). He gripped the pole higher than most vaulters to get extra leverage, though Bubka himself played down the effect of grip alone. cite web|url=http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1996/229619.shtml |title=On the Road to Atlanta |accessdate=2007-08-27 |date=1996-06-02 |work=The Ukrainian Weekly ] Bubka had great strength and could use a relatively heavier pole for his weight for generating more recoil force.

Along with these, his development and mastery of the Petrov/Bubka technical model is also considered as the key to his success. "A technical model is a sequence of positions and pressures that describe the method and form of a style of pole vaulting." The Petrov/Bubka model is superior to many others today because it allows the vaulter to continuously put energy into the pole while constantly rising towards the bar. While most of the conventional models focus on heavy planting of the pole to the landing pad to create maximum bend in the pole even before they leave the ground, Petrov/Bubka model concentrates on driving the pole up rather than bending it while planting it on the landing pad. While the traditional models depended on the recoil by bending the pole, Petrov/Bubka model could exploit the recoil of the pole and it could exert more energy on the pole during the swinging action.

Awards and positions held

* Bubka won the Prince of Asturias Award in Sports in 1991.
* Bubka was awarded best sportsman of the Soviet Union for three years in a row from 1984 to 1986
* Bubka was voted Sportsman of the Year for 1997 by the influential newspaper "L'Équipe"
* Bubka was honored as the best pole vaulter of the last half century by Track & Field News
* Bubka was designated as an IAAF council member in 2001
* He is currently serving as the president of National Olympic Council (NOC) of Ukraine and is an IOC member [cite web|url=http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/members/bio_uk.asp?id=103|title=IOC > Members > Sergey Bubka|accessdate=2007-08-26|work=Official Website of the Olympic Movement]
* Bubka was designated UNESCO Champion for Sport in 2003 [ cite web | url = http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=18728&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html | title = Ukrainian athlete Serhiy Bubka designated UNESCO Champion for Sport | accessdate = 2007-08-27 | publisher = Unesco.org | date = 2003-11-04 ]
* From 2002 to 2006, he had been a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and its committee on questions of youth policy, physical culture, sport and tourism.
* Completed his term in IOC athletes commission in Aug 08 [cite web|url=http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/05/content_8960780.htm | title = Fredericks succeeds Bubka as chairman of IOC's Athletes Commission ]

Quotes

* "I love the pole vault because it is a professor's sport. One must not only run and jump, but one must think. Which pole to use, which height to jump, which strategy to use. I love it because the results are immediate and the strongest is the winner. Everyone knows it. In everyday life that is difficult to prove." [Sergey Bubka to Gary Smith in "Sports Illustrated", September 14, 1988, referenced in cite web|url=http://www.wilsonbiographies.com/Currentbio/track.html|title=Current Biography Excerpts: Track and Field|publisher=HW Wilson|accessdate=2007-08-26] - Sergey Bubka
* "Here is a man who has personally altered his art form, changed the way competitors prepare for it and perform it, even the way spectators perceive it." - Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated about Bubka
* "My jump was imperfect, my run-in was too short and my hands were too far back at takeoff. When I manage to iron out these faults, I am sure I can improve." - In an interview after he was the first person to break 20 feet.

Bibliography

References

External links

* [http://www.sergeybubka.com Sergey Bubka's Official Site]
*
* [http://www.arielnet.com/start/media/highlights.pole.sergei.bubka.256kbps.htm A small video with the highlights of Bubka's career]
* [http://www.neovault.com/articles_bubka_speaks.asp http://www.neovault.com/articles_bubka_speaks.asp]
* [http://www.mastersathletics.net/fileadmin/html/Rankings/All_Time/polevaultmen.htm Masters T&F Pole Vault All-Time Rankings]