Yelena reveals ambitions for 2010 - and beyond
26 Jan 2010Yelena has vowed to put the disappointment of failure at last year’s world championships behind her and become even more successful in the coming years.
In an exclusive interview with the London-based daily Mail newspaper in the UK, Yelena also described how she grew up in a small family apartment in Volgograd dreaming of one day becoming one of the beautiful people she saw on television.
She revealed that as a child she dreamed of becoming a world-class gymnast like fellow countrywomen Olga Korbut and Nellie Kim.
Yelena told the newspaper that from the age of five she had set her sights on becoming the best gymnast in the world, inspired by the stories her parents told her of the likes of Korbut and Kim, who dominated the sport in the 1970s and early 1980s.
She said: “I’d watch famous, beautiful, rich people on TV and find motivation from them. I reasoned that they’d worked hard to get to where they had in life and that was what I had to do as well.
“Our apartment was only 48 square metres, which is very small for a family of four, and it meant I had to share a room with my younger sister. My parents had three jobs to support my gymnastics but I still wore second-hand clothes because we couldn’t afford anything nice. I dreamed of being rich.”
Yelena went on to become a national gymnastics champion by the age of 10 but continued to grow and was too tall for gymnastics by the time she was 15.
She added: “It was the worst day of my life. ‘I didn’t know what to do. Everything I had worked for, everything I had dreamed about was over. I cried for days.”
That was when her coach suggested she take up the pole vault instead – though she had not heard of the great Ukranian Sergey Bubka, who broke 35 world records in the men’s pole vault in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yelena said: “The coach said to me, ‘If you follow my instructions and if you trust me, you will be like Bubka’ I replied, ‘Bubka? Who’s she?’”
She has gone on to become one of the greatest female athlete of all time in terms of her world records and stunning medal haul – but there have been many hard decisions to make, including leaving Volgograd for a new life in Monaco, as well as a few disappointments, such as missing out on a medal at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.
Yelena added: “It has given me fresh motivation. I feel strong again. My mentality is fantastic. I proved it the following week when I broke the world record in Zurich. It shows that Berlin was an accident.
“That’s why I’m feeling more focused at this time of the year than ever before. I plan to win the world indoors this year and the European championships, then get back my world title in 2011 and then win my third Olympic gold medal in London. I plan to break Bubka’s record of 35 world records as well.
“There is still so much I can achieve. But it took a defeat to tell me this.”
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