Turning the pages back... April 17, 1997 (08/15/04)

Turning the pages back...

April 17, 1997

On August 17, 1997, The Weekly reported on yet another sports milestone surpassed by the spectacular Serhii Bubka. As Andrij Wynnyckyj of our staff wrote: "To the roar of 60,000 spectators in Athens, Ukraine's Serhii Bubka vaulted over a bar set 6.01 meters (19 feet, 8.5 inches, or over two stories) above the ground at the International Amateur Athletic Federation's world championships on August 10, reaffirming his pre-eminence in a sport he has dominated since his arrival on the scene in the early 1980s. His jump extended the greatest winning streak in the championships' history."

By claiming the gold in his event on that day in 1997, the 33-year-old Bubka continued his reign as the only athlete to take top honors in all six world competitions since their inception in 1983. Germany's world champion in discus, Lars Riedel, 30, who won his event for the fourth time in succession that same day, was the only other competitor at that time to come close.

"When Ukraine's most successful athlete ever arrived in Athens in 1997," wrote Mr. Wynnyckyj, "his rivals were waiting for him: 1992 Olympic Champion Tarasov; 1996 Olympic Champion Galfione. South African Okkert Brits was also in the field." Brits, Bubka and Russia's Igor Trandenkov were the only three members of the exclusive 6.00-meter club- at the time they were the only men in history to have cleared this height; Bubka was the charter member, having established the mark in 1991, then surpassing it 40 times by 1997.

After setting 35 separate world records (18 indoor and 17 outdoor) and winning six consecutive world championships and an Olympic gold medal in 1988, Bubka officially retired on February 4, 2001, in his hometown of Donetsk, Ukraine, where in 1993 he had set the world indoor record of 20 feet, 2 inches.

Source: "Bubka extends streak to six at world meet in Athens," by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj, The Ukrainian Weekly, August 17, 1997, Vol. LXV, No. 33; "Sports round-up: baseball to yachting," in "2001: The Year in Review," The Ukrainian Weekly, January 6, 2002, Vol. LXX, No. 1.

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