Sergey Bubka donates spikes to IAAF (© IAAF)
MonteCarloSergey Bubka (UKR), the 1988 Olympic champion and six-time outdoor World Championship gold medallist, the greatest pole vaulter of all-time, has donated his autographed 1997 World Championship winning spikes for the charity auction which began on Monday morning (16).
All the auction lots are available for bids for a ten day period via the on-line auction house eBay, CLICK HERE TO BID.
The IAAF’s humanitarian project ‘Athletics for a Better World: The IAAF Stars’ Donation Fund’, offers fans of World and Olympic track and field athletics the chance to buy pieces of unique sporting history.
Fifty star athletes from the Olympics’ number one sport, 23 of whom have been World Record breakers during their career, have donated items of personal memorabilia associated with some of their greatest sporting triumphs to the project whose proceeds are to be distributed between three United Nations organisations, FAO, UNICEF and the WFP.
Check out – http://www.iaaf.org/AFABW for further information.
Sergey Bubka (UKR)
Bubka, who though retired remains the current holder of the World record for the Pole Vault, is a member of the IAAF Council, IOC Athletes’ Commission, and IOC Executive Board.
In August 1997, at the age of 33, Bubka came to Athens to defend his five consecutive World Championship titles rated as a rank outsider. He had previously competed only four times that season as he struggled to regain his fitness following an Achilles operation in December 1996.
In perhaps one of the greatest comebacks in sports history, Bubka not only won the gold medal on 10 August 1997, to secure an unprecedented sixth World title but he cleared the greatest ever height in a major championship with a staggering vault of 6.01m. At that point in time no other person had won an outdoor World Championship Pole Vault title, as Bubka who had taken the inaugural gold in 1983 had successfully defended on every following occasion! For Bubka, this “was not my best title but it was the most difficult.” For the rest of the world his victory was nothing short of miraculous!
Bubka’s autographed 1997 World Championship winning spikes are now open for bids on eBay, as is the IOC member’s Athens 2004 Olympic Torch Relay T-Shirt which he has also signed.
