The Rise of Isinbayeva

[roger/over]

One way of charting the spectacular rise of Yelena Isinbayeva as a commanding figure in the women's pole vault is to look at the top 20 performances each outdoor season since 2000. It can be seen that the dominance of Stacy Dragila in the first two of those years has nearly been duplicated by that of Isinbayeva in the most recent two.

In the charts that follow, the data sequence is: number of top-20 performances/athlete/country/highest-ranking performance/top mark:

2000 Outdoor Season

10 Stacy Dragila USA 1 4.70m
3 Anzhela Balakhanova UKR 7 4.56m
2 Svetlana Feofanova RUS =12 4.50m
2 Daniela Bartova CZE =12 4.50m
1 Tatiana Grigorieva AUS 9 4.55m
1 Kellie Suttle USA 11 4.53m
1 Emma George AUS =12 4.50m
1 Mel Mueller USA =12 4.50m
1 Nicole Humbert GER =12 4.50m
1 Vala Flosadottir ISL =12 4.50m
(Isinbayeva tied for 55th best vault at 4.40m)

2001 Outdoor Season

10 Stacy Dragila USA 1 4.81m
7 Svetlana Feofanova RUS 3 4.75m
2 Kellie Suttle USA 18 4.60m
1 Monika Pyrek POL 17 4.63m
(Isinbayeva tied for 48th best vault at 4.46m)

2002 Outdoor Season

8 Svetlana Feofanova RUS 1 4.78m
6 Stacy Dragila USA 4 4.72m
2 Mary Sauer USA 10 4.65m
2 Yvonne Buschbaum GER 11 4.64m
1 Anika Becker GER 2 4.77m
1 Monika Pyrek POL 17 4.62m
1 Yelena Isinbayeva RUS =19 4.60m
1 Tatyana Polnova RUS =19 4.60m

2003 Outdoor Season

7 Yelena Isinbayeva RUS 1 4.82m
5 Svetlana Feofanova RUS 3 4.75m
4 Tatyana Polnova RUS =7 4.70m
3 Yvonne Buschbaum GER =7 4.70m
3 Anika Becker GER =7 4.70m
3 Stacy Dragila USA =20 4.62m

(I thought I must have made a mistake about Dragila, since I have her with 3 top-20 performances with her best being 20th. When I checked how that could be, I found a six-way tie for the 20th-best performance at 4.62, with Stacy having three of those; Isinbayeva, Feofanova and Polnova one each.)

2004 Outdoor Season

6 Yelena Isinbayeva RUS 1 4.92m
6 Stacy Dragila USA 7 4.82m
5 Svetlana Feofanova RUS 5 4.88m
2 Tatyana Polnova RUS 12 4.78m
2 Anna Rogowska POL 17 4.70m
1 Monika Pyrek POL 16 4.72m

(Again, I had to double-check what I thought to be the unlikely circumstance of Dragila being the only USA vaulter with a top-20 performance in the last two outdoor seasons: true.)