Dragila
wants her records back
By IAAF Correspondent
12 February 2002 – Stacy Dragila had to watch from her bed in
Belgium as Russian Svetlana Feofanova took the indoor pole vault world record further away
from her grasp on Sunday—and now the American is determined to get it back.
The pair meet in the third of the Energizer EuroSeries in Birmingham this Sunday and America’s Olympic and world champion Dragila cannot wait.
She is slowly recovering from the flu that sidelined her in Ghent last weekend, having made a tentative start to the season after injury only to see her world record disappear.
Feofanova, who finished second behind Dragila at last summer’s World Championships in Edmonton, has extended the American’s indoor record from 4.70 to 4.73 metres with three superb performances in 10 days.
But Dragila said today: “It is strange not to be world record holder but it has given me new enthusiasm to get it back, it has given me a charge to the system.
“I knew it would be a tough battle this indoor season, that Svetlana would be in top form. She is fit right now, she is running fast, vaulting well and she is having fun.
“There is a lot of money, a lot of bonuses at stake and she knows if she is going to break it centimetre by centimetre, then it will pay off for her.
“If that is the way she chooses to do it then fine but it leaves it pretty dangerous because I could have a good meet and it could turn for me.
“It is a gamble in a way by taking it up by just a centimetre at a time because if I am on form, I am capable of getting it back. If she had increased it by five or six centimetres, then it would have been that much harder.
“Sergey Bubka used to do it that way by increasing it by small margins but there was such a huge gap between him and the other competitors, whatever he did, no-one else would come close to it.
“But it is great for the sport. It makes fantastic competition and Svetlana is having a superb season.
“And what it does, it means that when you are competing against each other, you know that if you make one mistake, the other person will probably swipe victory away from you.”
Dragila’s best this winter has been 4.57m but she has been visualising re-creating that perfect jump. “I need to be faster on the runway but that will come with each competition,” she added.
Their clash in Birmingham will be one of the feature events of the Norwich Union Grand Prix and Dragila is looking forward to the summer ahead without any major championships.
“We have two big years after that with the World Championships and the Olympics, so it will be important to make the most of this season,” she said. “Though there is the World Cup in September which should be good.”
The consistency of Dragila, whose outdoor world record stands at 4.81m, and Feofanova, is spreading the word for the event.
“When I do clinics, it is noticeable how there are more women than boys at them,” said Dragila.
Another spectacular show this Sunday will only enhance their reputation further.
