Final College Essay

Whitman Oehler-Marx

Ap Lit

Ms. Diana

10 June 2012

                                                If I Could Spend a Year with Bubka

            Many people come to mind when I think about all the people I would like to spend a year with. And I could write about many people and why it would be so amazing to spend a year with them. However no one stand so clearly out in my mind then Sergey Bubka; the world record holder for men’s pole vaulting.

            Bubka, born on December 4^th 1963, hails from the Ukraine and represented the Soviet Union as an athlete. He came up from nothing. He started his training at the age of ten and he slowly rose to the top. He had very minimal training devices, their medicine balls were bags of pebbles and their pits were made from mattresses. His coach Vitaly Petrov helped him create a new technique that led him to victory (his coach also is coaching Yelena Isinbaeva the current woman’s world record holder in indoor and outdoor pole vault). But it wasn’t just his new technique but his perseverance and his will to win. He said “if you have everything, a beautiful environment, you are not hungry for success. In some ways, this determines what happens but not as much as the value of the success and the dream of the athlete.”(Livingston 100)   He broke the world record an astonishing 35 times in his professional career. He currently still owns two world records for pole vault, 6.14 meters outdoors and 6.15 meters indoors. He was known for breaking his world records by centimeters because every time he broke it he would receive compensation from the Soviet Union. Because of this he drew in the crowds to pole vault and made it one of the most viewed track events. He was given the best sportman award from the Soviet Union three years in a row. He defined the sport.  

            A year spent with Sergey Bubka would be a dream come true. The main reason I would want to spend my year with him is because I would want him to help me train. I have aspirations to pole vault in college and his training would help me achieve heights I never thought I could conquer. He would help me perfect my form. However he could also show me drills and exercises that I could continue throughout my entire vaulting career in order to get faster and stronger.  Training from Bubka would bring my understanding of the sport to a whole new level. And thus bring my level of competition to a whole new level. It would be the best year of my life.

            If I could spend a year with anyone living, or dead, past, present, or future, I would spend it with the world renowned athlete Sergey Bubka. The current world record holder for men’s indoor and outdoor pole vault. During the course of my year with him I would ask him to help me train and to learn all of his tips and secrets to become a world class pole-vaulter.   

           

             Work sited: Livingston, Bill. Above & Beyond . Kent Ohio: The Kent State University Press, n.d. N. pag. Print.