BLEASDALE TO TACKLE ISINBAYEVA IN POLAND NEXT WEEK - By David Martin
The competition should prove an exciting confrontation with all five athletes expected to take part at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul from 9-11 March.
Holly Bleasdale who recently went to second position on the World Indoors All-Time list will clash with the Yelena Isinbayeva thye queen of pole vaulting in Poland next week. ©EAA - European Athletics
Holly Bleasdale who recently went to second position on the World Indoors All-Time list will clash with the Yelena Isinbayeva thye queen of pole vaulting in Poland next week.
Bleasdale who vaulted 4.87 metres, a massive improvement to her British record of 4.71m at a French meeting in Villeurbanne, France last month, may still be considered a young pretender after that magnificent performance.
But the 20-year-old who crashed out of last summer's IAAF World Championships has an early opportunity to prove the performance was no fluke when going head--to-head with Isinbayeva in Bydgoszcz on 8 February.
Neither Bleasdale nor Russia's reigning Olympic champion and World record holder indoors (5.00m) and outdoors (5.06m) will have time to relax with top Pole's Anna Rogowska and Monika Pyrek plus Isinvayeva's fellow countrywoman Svetlana Feofanova also in the line up.
The competition should prove an exciting confrontation with all five athletes expected to take part at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul from 9-11 March.
Meanwhile Bleasdale will also step up her preparations for the Championships and summer's Olympic Games when turning out at the Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham on Saturday 18 February which will see at sell-out crowd at the National Indoor Arena.
Bleasdale also competing at the Aviva Indoor UK Trials and Championships in Sheffield (11-12 February), said: "I've competed at the NIA before and I'm really excited to return to the venue and improve on my previous performance.
"It's important that I keep competing throughout the year so I have a few milestones leading up to the Olympic Games. The field at Birmingham should be really strong and obviously it forces me to jump higher if it's a really competitive field, so hopefully it will be a good meet for me.
"I was really pleased with my performance in France, I think I'm still in a little bit of shock but at the same time I've been working really hard and been really focused on my training and that's the exact result I've been aiming for.
"I feel good in myself and I know what I need to do this year so it's important that I just stick with my own preparations and keep my head down. I don't want to take what happened in France and make every meet about trying to do that again because really I just want to try my best at every meet I attend and hopefully the results will follow."
Bleasdale in Birmingham will clash again with 2009 World Champion Rogowska, while Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell and 5000m World Champion Mo Farah will headline the action on the track.
David Martin
