AFP/Moscow
Russian pole-vault icon Yelena Isinbayeva said yesterday she plans to retire after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she has her sights sets on a third Olympic gold.
“If everything goes as planned, I will be in a new role next year,” Isinbayeva told journalists at a meeting of the world’s Olympic associations in Moscow. “I won’t say in which role for the time being.”
Olympians and sport officials from around the world gathered in Moscow yesterday for the inaugural World Olympians Forum, a platform for discussion about the future of the Olympic Movement.
The 33-year-old Olympian had announced her retirement after winning the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow to give birth to her daughter.
But the three-time Olympic medallist later announced she would come out of retirement if she had a chance at winning the gold in Rio.
Yesterday, Isinbayeva said her preparations for Rio were “going well” but declined to elaborate on her participation in competitions leading up to the Games.
Isinbayeva—who won gold at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens and again at the 2008 Beijing Olympics—took a sabbatical in 2010 after finishing off the podium at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha. She returned to competition in February 2011, promptly winning a fourth world indoor title in Istanbul before taking bronze at the 2012 London Olympics.
Isinbayeva is the first woman to clear the 5-metre bar, setting her existing record of 5.06 m in Zurich in 2009.
Yelena Isinbayeva
