From the age of 5 to 15, Isinbayeva trained as a gymnast in her hometown of Volgograd. She ultimately left the sport because as she grew she was considered too tall to be competitive read more...

In her first big competition, the 1998 World Junior Championships in Annecy, France, Isinbayeva jumped 4.00 m but this left her 10 cm away from the medal placings. In 1999, read more...

2003 was another year of progression and saw Isinbayeva win the European Under 23 Championships gold with 4.65 m (in Bydgoszcz). She went onto break the world record clearing read more...

2004 saw the women's pole vault really start to mature as an event and during a meeting at Donetsk, Ukraine, Isinbayeva set a new indoor worlds best, with a height of 4.83 m read more...

In July 2005, Isinbayeva broke the world record four times over three separate meetings. First in Lausanne, Switzerland, she added an extra centimetre to her own mark clearing 4.93 read more...

At an indoor meeting on February 12 in Donetsk, Ukraine, Isinbayeva set a new indoor world record. She cleared 4.91 m. In August she won the gold medal at the 2006 European Athletics read more...

On 10 February 2007 in Donetsk, Ukraine, Isinbayeva broke the world indoor pole vault record again, by clearing 4.93 metres. It was Isinbayeva's 20th world record.

On 28 August read more...

During the indoor season, Isinbayeva set her twenty-first world record, clearing 4.95 metres on 16 February 2008 in Donetsk, Ukraine. A few weeks later, in Valencia, Spain, Isinbayeva read more...

Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbayeva (Russian: Елена Гаджиевна Исинбаева; born June 3, 1982 (1982-06-03) (age 26) read more...

Her father, Gadzhi Gadzhiyevich Isinbayev, is a plumber and a member of a small (70,000-people strong) ethnic group of Tabasarans who mostly live in Dagestan. Her mother, a shop read more...