pole vaulting

Victory in the pole vault for 22-year-old Muscovite Svetlana Feofanova at the European Athletics Championships in Munich brought her a very modest result of 4 m 60 cm. However, as the current European record holder SVETLANA FEOFANOVA told Kommersant correspondent VALERIYA MIRONOVA, she is already potentially ready not only take the world record - 4.81, owned by American Stacy Dragila, but beat it. — Yolanda Chen, the wife of your coach Evgeniy Bondarenko, assured me that you are now able to jump even five meters...
— It seems to me that the women’s pole should definitely have its own Bubka. Someone will start jumping five meters. Or maybe even 5.15. I want to believe that this someone will be me.
— How much time do you give yourself to make a breakthrough in pole vaulting?
— About five years, in any case, I still hope to perform. However, as for all kinds of records, I consider putting them off, as they say, like death. Therefore, I will try to fully realize my full potential in the very near future. The faster, in general, the better. And I am, rest assured, a very ambitious athlete.
- People who know you well say that you are evil.
— In a sporting way, probably. As for the question that is probably on your tongue, why didn’t I try to set a world record in Munich, I will answer this: firstly, the weather was not favorable and the headwind whipped me in the face during the take-off run, and secondly, I I didn’t feel too good at that moment. I’m not used to, you know, forcing myself too much. After all, 16 starts of the season are already behind us.
— Isn’t it possible that financial incentives don’t count? After all, according to the most conservative estimates, you received $50 thousand apiece from the IAAF for just five world records.
— In Germany, it was much more important to me than to earn money, it was simply to win, because our European Championship, like the Olympic Games, is held once every four years. And who knows whether I will live to see the next one as an athlete?
— In theory, your main rival here should have been the German Annika Becker, who, although not for long, took away the title of European record holder from you this summer?
— I believe that the result of 4.50 and fifth place are legitimate for this upstart, because she demonstrates all her so-called feats exclusively at home - at local tournaments. And as soon as she appears at major official competitions in any other country, she barely exceeds 4.50. So judge for yourself. And when she took away my European record, I felt as if I, a high-class professional, had been deprived of my job by some junior girl. No, I thought, this won’t work. And she quickly dealt with her.
— Stacy Dragila is performing much worse than you this year. Did this give you a feeling of absolute world leadership?
“Indeed, I have strengthened my position.” After all, if a year ago I consistently jumped 4.60 and sincerely regarded my second place after Dragila at the World Championships in Edmonton as a victory over myself, now 4.70 is the most common result for me. Stacey, on the contrary, seems to have slowed down, but the burden of leadership also has a negative side for me, because now I always and everywhere hear: “You must, must, must.” They expect me not only to win, but also to set records.
— Your current European record is 4.78. Do you remember your very first jump in competition?
- Just don’t laugh: then, four and a half years ago, after training for a month and a half in the sector, I jumped only... 3.60. After all, before I picked up a pole, I did gymnastics for many years. But having received the title of international master of sports, I suddenly realized: that’s it, this is my ceiling.
— But why did you choose pole vaulting, which was exotic for women at that time, as the place for your further efforts?
— The fact is that male pole vaulters regularly came to our CSKA gym to practice various somersaults and turns. Their gymnastics coach, the now deceased Vladimir Safronov, I don’t know why, suddenly suggested that I take up jumping and get me a job with a good specialist. I remember how I laughed in my heart, and when things got really bad with gymnastics, I came to Luzhniki and accidentally came across Evgeniy Bondarenko, who was just working with his guys in the sector. He gave me a pole - a completely foreign object to me, which I had only seen on TV before. And when, of course, nothing worked out for me, he also cursed me out loud. In horror, I then ran away from the stadium. But after thinking about it, she returned a few days later.
- When did love come to the pole?
— Then, when I started to understand this type of thing and one day asked myself: “Light, are you worse than others, or what?”

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 142 dated 08/13/2002, p. 15

Authors:

Valeria Mironova

"I want to become a female Bubka"