#Duncan Mackay
Donetsk isn’t what it used to be. Sergey Bubka can’t help noticing it during his brief visits. His apartment on the 13th floor on “The Street Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the USSR” is untouched, but Bubka has had an extra-thick wall of brick built in the vestibule and put up a new door with solid locks.
Bubka’s visits to his own apartment are becoming a rare occurrence and when he does travel back he is usually accompanied by a burly bodyguard due to a fear of the Russian mafia who largely control this Ukrainian city.
“I’ve never run into trouble here … but you never know,” he said. “Today it seems like anybody at all will do anything at all for money.”
Thanks to his exploits in the pole vault, Bubka is undoubtedly Donetsk’s richest citizen, but it would be unthinkable to believe that anyone would lay a finger on a man who is such a hero in his home city that they have erected a statue in his honour.
So it is fitting that Bubka has chosen to return home from his new base in Monte Carlo to formally bring the curtain down on his honour-laden career by competing in his own pole-vault meeting that he has been promoting since 1990 and where he set the current world indoor record. Afterwards he will pack away his poles for the last time and it will be the end of a legend.
The 37-year-old star is not expected to make more than a token appearance. Much more memorable will be his record six consecutive world championships, his Olympic gold medal and the 35 times he broke the world record.
Bubka’s indoor world record of 6,15m and outdoor record of 6,14m set the bar high, and no one has even come close. Almost always the improvement was by a mere centimetre, enough to up his appearance fee for future meetings and raise another bonus from sponsors. He is a multimillionaire and has a Mercedes and a Ferrari parked outside his luxury apartment. He reigned unbeaten in major competition for seven years after emerging as a surprise to win the world championships in Helsinki in 1983 despite entering the competition as a teenager and only as the Soviet Union’s third-ranked vaulter.
It was his ill fortune that the Soviet boycott ruled him out of almost certain gold in the Los Angeles Games in 1984. Four years later in Seoul, Bubka needed only one valid jump at 5,9m to secure his first, and only Olympic gold.
He would flop in Barcelona four years later, failing to clear a single height, and did not reach the final in Atlanta or Sydney after he suffered injuries.
Bubka is not leaving sport. At Sydney he was the first athlete elected to the International Olympic Committee’s executive board and will attend his second meeting at Dakar, Senegal, this week. He also is a member of the Evaluation Commission for the 2008 Olympics, and will shortly visit five of the bid cities Beijing, Osaka, Toronto, Istanbul and Paris.
“The IOC work is very stimulating and occupies a lot of my time,” said Bubka. “I was very happy because I always dreamt that I could finish my sporting career and then quickly become part of a sport organisation.
“I was lucky because I arrived at the end of my competitive career at exactly the same moment as the IOC made some revolutionary changes.
“This will open doors for the athletes and I can take advantage of what was an unexpected opportunity. But I am also very proud that the world’s athletes have chosen me as their representative.”
ENDS