Isinbaeva Adds to the History Books, One Centimetre at a Time

In a manner every bit as emphatic as Usain Bolt's 100m victory last Saturday, Elena Isinbaeva tonight proved herself to be the greatest female athlete of her generation. Isinbaeva won a second consecutive gold in the pole vault, and broke her own world and Olympic records in the process.

The final had been billed as a showdown between Isinbaeva, the strikingly handsome Russian, and the USA's Jennifer Stuczynski. There was certainly a fierce rivalry between the two women, but not much of a contest. After winning the US Olympic trials earlier this year, Stuczynski spat a verbal challenge towards Isinbaeva, saying: "I hope we go over there and do some damage, kick some Russian butt. I hope that fires them up because we are pretty fired up over here."

The plan worked. Stuczynski set a personal best of 4.92m at the trials, higher than any women other than Isinbaeva had ever vaulted. She reached just 4.80m yesterday, some 25 centimeters and a great deal of daylight beneath Isinbaeva's final, world-record breaking, vault of 5.05m.

As commanding as Isinbaeva's performance was in the final, she had struggled to find her best form over the last two seasons, bothered by the lack of worthy competition. Stuczynski's comments undoubtedly rectified that, prompting Isinbaeva to break her world record three times since July 11; it stood at 5.04m until today.

The two women had played cat-and-mouse with each other throughout the three hours of the final, but there was no question who the cat was. For the first 90 minutes of the competition Isinbaeva didn't even attempt a vault but simply sat trackside, her baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes. When the bar reached 4.70m she finally decided to stop passing, and duly cleared the height at her first attempt. By that point seven of the 12 competitors in the field had already been knocked out.

After tugging her cap back on to her head she sat down again and passed on the next two heights, watching as Stuczynski moved into first place by clearing 4.80m. When Isinbaeva rose for her second vault of the evening, she and the American were the only athletes left in the competition.

Soon after that she had the stage, and the attention of most of the crowd, to herself. Stuczynski failed at 4.90m, and Isinbaeva had only herself to compete against. She had already attracted by far the loudest welcome of any foreign athlete at the meet, louder even than Usain Bolt in the second round of the 200m. The Chinese crowd are often indifferent to any stars other than their own, but Isinbaeva was a notable exception.

So, with 50,000 odd remaining spectators clapping her on, she set about an assault on her own records, beginning with the Olympic mark of 4.92m that she set in the Athens final. The manner in which she did it, taking the maximum three vaults to break that and again for her world best, was enough to make a cynic think that she was stage-managing the whole thing.

It's not as implausible as it sounds: Isinbaeva has broken world indoor and outdoor records on 24 separate occasions. Sergiy Bubka, the great Ukrainian vaulter who set 35 world records himself, was in the stadium to watch. He would surely have approved of the manner in which Isinbaeva has raised the mark one centimeter at a time, just as he did, making himself rich in reward money as he did so. She is even coached by Bubka's former mentor, Vitali Petrov.

The daughter of a plumber and a shop assistant, and a former lieutenant in the Russian Army, Isinbaeva admits that, as well as making money, "the idea of being glamorous is very important to me. I always want to look like a girl. I don't agree that you are either a sportswoman or a girl." Before attempting her final vault she paused to add an extra two hair-ties to her ponytail and twiddle the golden rings on her fingers.

No doubt her beauty adds to both her popularity and her wealth, but it is her remarkable talent that draws her most attention. Just 26 years old now, she has said that she will carry on in the sport until London 2012. By that point she won't just be one of the richest sportswomen on the planet, but one of the most successful athletes in history.