Steven Downes for the IAAF
18 October 2000 – Yelena Isinbayeva won Russia’s first gold medal of the eight World Junior Championships here on Wednesday, setting a championship best 4.20 metres in a pole vault competition that lasted nearly three hours.
The Russian had had a shaky start, with two failures at her opening height of 3.90 metres. But by the finish, the 18-year-old was boldly attacking 4.30m, and only just missed that height at her third attempt.
With five women over 4.00 metres, the competition saw four medals awarded.
Silver went to Annika Becker, of Germany, while there were bronzes for Vanessa Boslak of France and Hungary’s Fanni Juhasz – all three clearing 4.10m, but Becker having had just one early failure, at 3.70m.
