The strategy of my coach and me was that we looked at pictures of all the best pole vaulters from around the world, and we took the best parts from them, and we created a person that had never existed. We then started to work toward being such a person.
I think that focusing on the money, on the business, is not enough.
What is nice about this sport is that I am responsible for most everything.
I am alone, some people help me, but, basically, I can do what I want.
My policy was just to give good things for sports in my region.
The Olympics are always a special competition, it is very difficult to predict what will happen.
My main idea was to create a sports facility for the basics. This is why I established the club.
We started with that, basically to help kids, and then we created a pole vault school, which is part of the club and exists to this day. The club and school exist.
People come from around the world and can understand each other without even speaking the same languages!
You need to work very hard, you have to spend a lot of time practicing your sport - six to seven hours daily.
I think that, generally, you need to live with your sport 24 hours a day.
And, of course, method is very important as is a high-quality specialist (trainer) working with you to keep you going in the right direction for your improvement and to help create results.
The pole vault is a very complicated event, there are many things involved.
Of course, the psychological part, the tactics, is very important.
Often you need to take some risk, but it must be a realistic risk, you can't take a crazy risk.
I decided to create a sports club during the Soviet times. It was my dream.
I began with track and field because this is what I know.
Sports life is very short.
Today I have 35 people who work in the club and associated businesses.
I have bought pole vault equipment, the landing areas, posts, which costs a lot of money. We pay for coaches.
