What does Elena Isinbaeva think about her life now?

Off Side

Elena Isinbaeva did not win gold at the Olympic Games this time. Special correspondent of Kommersant-BoscoSport ANDREY KOLESNIKOV, who saw Elena Isinbayeva in the stands and under the stands that evening, believes that she is right when she says that she will leave the sport, and when she says that she will stay.

I could clearly see everything that happened with Elena Isinbayeva that evening. I sat in the third row of the stands behind her coach Evgeniy Trofimov and watched.

She tried her best to hide from prying eyes in the 80,000-seat stadium. She was reclining, and on one side she was covered by a short row of crimson-violet seats for athletes and a canopy from the rain, and on the other, where we were sitting, nothing was covering her. And she sat with a blue towel covering her head, as she almost always does at competitions, and skipped one height after another. In addition to the towel on her head, she had a baseball cap, a hood... Well, how else could she protect herself from people and be left alone with this not yet ordered height?

The competition began at seven pm local time. At the beginning of the ninth she threw off her towel and began to warm up. She took off her baseball cap, jacket, and long, knee-length woolen socks, revealing sneakers underneath. She took off her sweatpants, then slowly took off her T-shirt... It was worth stopping there.

She took out a pole from a long pipe, then suddenly threw the towel over her head again. So she stood in front of him for some time, persuading him or something.

Then the coach stood right in front of me, who had previously been sitting, biting his finger. He signaled with his hands like a traffic cop at a crossroads: he raised one into the sky, the other pointed somewhere in the center of London... She looked at him. I noticed that she doesn’t even start a jump without his permission.

But she didn't take 4.65.

A happy Evgenia Kolodko ran past, with the Russian flag on her outstretched arms, along the stadium path. She just took bronze in the shot put. (The gold and silver medalists did not run past: it seems to me that they, like their core, could not run even a few meters. These girls were born to push.)

Elena Isinbaeva noticed Evgenia Kolodko because at that moment she was going to the coach, he called her. Kolodko ran with the flag between them. And very happy.

They began to consult about what height she should take. All the athletes here did this: they came to the edge of the stadium and shouted something to the coaches sitting in the second and third rows. This is not encouraged by the rules, but is not prohibited either.

- Take 4.65 and then give 4.75! - the coach shouted to her. “And catch the wind!”

Isinbayeva nodded and went into the jumping sector. There she put on her baseball cap, jacket again... this whole ritual... Then she took it off. Getting ready to jump.

- Lena! - the coach shouted to her.

She came up.

— The headwind is too strong! Come on 4.70!

She nodded again unquestioningly, pinned her hair up differently and went to jump. Now she took 4.65 with a large margin and then watched her jump in the video replay. Everything was right. The coach stood with his hands in his pockets.

“Lena,” he shouted to her, “get dressed, then come over!”

A strange summer Olympics, when athletes, while not performing, walk around the stadium in knitted hats and autumn jackets (and the Chinese shot putter was, naturally, wearing a Chinese down jacket). The spectators that day turned out to be, for example, not so prudent and were now numb from the cold.

A German woman in sunglasses ran up to the edge, although there was no sun (and the glasses were apparently instead of a towel on her head). Everything about her looked so masculine: her voice, her figure, especially her legs... but there are no such female legs... And suddenly a good smile painted her face. That was a girlish smile.

Isinbayeva approached Trofimov and said:

- 70 I’m fine!.. 75?.. No need?..

And we saw that it was even very good.

Trofimov nodded: no need.

She walked away, and then the anthem of the victorious Jamaica was played in honor of Usain Bolt, who had won the hundred-meter dash the day before. Not only the spectators, but especially the jumpers lined up towards the flag; Isinbayeva also froze, but then she began, perhaps unnoticed even to herself, to flex her toes on the ground.

Meanwhile, the stadium was so jubilant that it seemed that these people had come here specifically for this award ceremony, and not for Isinbayeva’s jumps.

A German, an American fell, Isinbaeva again wrapped herself in a towel, stretching her lower back before another jump... She got ready to jump.

But then the start of the 400-meter hurdles final began, and she waited for a long time until the Dominican Felix Sanchez won, who then cried for so long on the podium.

Just before the jump, she looked at the trainer. He had been semaphoring her for a long time. But she misunderstood something, and he began to speak to her in time with the movements of his hands, carefully articulating as if he were hard of hearing:

- Racks - there - five!

She again took 4.70 with a reserve.

It began to rain, and Isinbayeva buried herself not only in her jacket and baseball cap, but also in her raincoat, and was now sitting on the ground, slowly swaying. She ordered 4.75, which American Jennifer Sure just didn’t take. The German sitting next to me said that Isinbayeva would definitely win, and so would the Cuban Yarisley Silva, who, it seemed, was not very good, but, however, had already set a national record and was preparing with a pole in her hands for something more.

Trofimov showed Isinbayeva that there was a strong headwind on the left, and then immediately gave the command to start: apparently, he realized that the wind was changing. She started right away, but didn’t take it.

- Lena! - he shouted to her. - Lena!

She looked at him and didn't go.

Then she said that the wind was still too strong and that she wanted to wait, but the team was already there, and she ran. She was annoyed.

But the Cuban ran to her coaches on business and without business.

The German Silke Spiegelburg finished her performance, ran up to the edge, shaking from crying, and shouted something to her people, stretching out her hands to them in some kind of prayer. I asked the German sitting next to me what she was shouting.

“She shouts: “What a fool I am! As always!..” That’s what she shouts.

A minute later he was comforting her on the podium, in the rain, there were more tears than rain.

And Isinbaeva, ready for the next jump, waited for the start of another race, this time at 3000 meters with hurdles, failed another attempt, and a few minutes later Yulia Zaripova, who won this race, ran up to her sector and kissed the last barrier, after which she broke away from her rivals.

All this was five steps away from Elena Isinbayeva, but she probably, fortunately, did not see this (maybe, unfortunately, of course). Now she was sitting with her head buried in the blanket.

I saw these blankets used to cover beds in the Olympic Village. This blanket came from there. Although she did not live in the village, she moved in there and, apparently, then looked at it for her needs.

“Come on 4.80,” the coach said after a few minutes, and she went back into the blanket, this time for a long time. The blanket in front of her face was moving, as if she was doing something with her hands in front of it. Four years ago, in Beijing, when she won, she admitted to me that she was praying at this time, and even promised to say the words of prayer later. That's right, I didn't say that.

On that day, I’m sure, she had one or even two icons with her, which she quietly took out from somewhere in her bag. Or maybe they remained lying in it, but they were still with Elena Isinbayeva in this sector.

Now she didn’t even dress, didn’t feel the cold, she just walked around the sector, wrapped in a blanket, which didn’t protect her from the cold at all.

The American took 4.75. But Elena Isinbaeva did not take 4.80 and stayed. That was the end of it. That is bronze.

She carefully collected her things, scattered, as it turned out, almost throughout the entire sector, and began to get dressed. Red pants, gray jacket... She was thinking intensely about something. Then she ran up to the coach, hugged him and left again.

I also approached Evgeniy Trofimov and asked him why it all happened this way.

“She,” he said, “you see, had personal reasons.” I can't say now. But she did everything she could. She couldn't do it anymore today.

I didn't have that feeling. Still, they saw her fly over the bar twice.

Elena Isinbayeva was standing at that moment at the edge and shaking hands with someone. She was crying now. No one else saw her tears that evening. Then she told reporters that she cried with joy that she received bronze. A few minutes later, at a press conference, she said that if she had known that she would receive bronze here in London, she would not have come here at all.

I think both are true.

Nearby, the victorious American was crying, truly with happiness.

In general, everyone cried that evening.

Then Isinbayeva came up to us, and I asked her right there, at the edge:

- Could it have worked out?

- Today is not my day! — she loudly shouted this simple phrase, which did not require such dedication (the stands just fell silent at that moment, as if specifically so that she could say it).

“Of course,” the coach confirmed.

“I know that I’m the best,” she added. “I know it!” Fate just showed me...

- What? - I asked again.

- Well, maybe I should stay until Rio! The weather is good in Rio... But it's so cold here.

- Stay.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I’m so tired!” Fatigue set in. I'm so tired of everything! I'm tired of training, tired of performing!..

Now she spoke surprisingly calmly, although the stadium was raging around again and it was not very audible, although she stood a step away from me.

“She told you everything herself,” Trofimov said when the organizers took her away from us.

—About fatigue? Is this a personal reason?

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Nearby, on either side of us, still stood the American and the Cuban, who received silver and became, without a doubt, a full-fledged national hero.

Isinbayeva approached them and said:

- Well, that's it, let's go!

Then she repeated it in English. They obediently walked with her to the exit.

In the room where they fill out protocols before going for doping, Yulia Zaripova asked:

- How did Lena perform?.. Oh...

The Olympic champion had been taken out under the stands earlier, and now she was trying to fill out this protocol, and she wasn’t very successful, and she also had to change clothes before the questions in the mixed zone and the press conference in the hall... And she delicately asked the girl standing next to her to help. She looked around in search of some things, did not find anything she wanted, and then she took the Russian flag in her hands and shielded Zaripova from the people:

- Let her change her clothes!

So on the beach, in exceptional cases, use a towel.

True, the flag was visible.

Zaripova still managed to tell that she was not allowed to sleep that night, although she really wanted to, because someone behind the wall was constantly walking around the room (that is, the sleep was still too light) and that she was woken up literally in the middle of the night...

And Isinbayeva gave interviews in a mixed zone, first to television journalists, then to writers...

- Guys! - she shouted, just like in the stadium, although it was quiet here.

But she couldn't seem to control herself.

- You waited, guy! I thought you had already run away, because I have bronze, not gold!!!

She seemed indecently even animated and joyful.

She told the television crew that she had an injury and that they would no longer ask her why she did not take the gold:

- I didn’t take gold because I took bronze!

She explained to other journalists in the mixed zone:

- Yes, I can jump 4.80 with my eyes closed!

She explained to them that she was happy that “a) my world record was not broken... b) my Olympic record was not broken... c) the girl jumped and still jumps!..”, they asked her if she would remain in sports, and she shouted:

- Excel-moksel, even if you want to, you can’t leave!

And she repeated that she was glad, glad, glad for this medal!

- I’m already getting used to it!.. And my beach!.. Sand!..

She screamed and laughed so loudly that I was a little afraid for her. But she had to hold out.

And she held on, and then, when she left the big press conference, she herself asked with some kind of exultant despair in her soul:

- Well, did I write a great story for everyone?

And while this press conference was going on, the coach was waiting for her near the room where runners and female runners took doping tests. Here an exhausted American coach was squatting, runner Sanchez, who had happily and quickly passed his tests, was hugging the volunteers, and his coach was lying on the floor in black trousers with a sharp crease; here a Cuban woman walked around, stunned by what had happened, having jumped much higher than her head... Yulia Zaripova quickly freed herself and came out... Here, in the small hall, there was a lot of happiness.

“You see...” Evgeniy Trofimov told me. “Eh, oh well, I won’t win a medal after all... And we are wind-dependent, and here there is always a headwind!” The organizers are terribly wrong for putting the sector this way. This should not have been done! At Mutko’s request, they even brought us a double-sided pit to Volgograd so that we wouldn’t depend on the wind! And then they set it and forgot about it...

I wanted to tell him that the other athletes also had a headwind...

“Okay,” he repeated, “let’s not talk about sad things!” But it’s a pity, of course... But there might not have been bronze! She might not have qualified, there was such a danger! Many didn't pass! This is because the sector was placed incorrectly... I'm so tired... Of course, everyone wanted gold from her.

And he too, I saw.

A few minutes later she came from the press conference.

—Did you pray again there, in the sector, under the veil? — I asked her the last question.

“I prayed,” she said. “What else could I do?”

Andrey Kolesnikov

It's too early to put a pole on the quarry