Rogowska back in pole position after 'lost' years

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.european-athletics.org/index ... 6&Itemid=2

Rogowska back in pole position after 'lost' years

15.09.2009

Poland's Anna Rogowska says her surprise IAAF World Championships gold
gave her back her self-esteem after struggling with injuries and form. Anna Rogowska will go down in the record books as one of the most unexpected champions at the 2009 IAAF World Championships. The Polish pole vaulter herself was astonished that the legendary Yelena Isinbayeva was unable to offer a challenge.

However, victory in Berlin meant much more than a gold medal and a cheque for $60,000. It brought back her self-esteem which had taken some severe knocks in recent years.

"Now that I've been successful, I've recovered my motivation. Finishing 10th in the Olympics last summer was a low point. For three years I'd struggled with injuries and there were moments when I did not have the strength to train or vault. I couldn't really think about the future," reflected the 28-year-old Rogowska.

"Finally, I talked frankly with my husband (Jacek Torliński, who also coaches her along with former Polish international Lescek Klima) in the winter and realized I can't really do anything else! Vaulting is my passion, it's not yet exhausted."

In the middle of this decade, Rogowska appeared to have the world at her feet and looked ready to offer a challenge to Isinbayeva's supremacy.

The point was proven by her 2004 Olympic Games bronze medal and then silver medals at the European Athletics Indoor Championships and IAAF World Indoor Championships in the following two years.

She also got a bronze medal at the 2007 European indoors but injuries in both legs, which have required surgery in recent years, were starting to take their toll.

"In all of this, I feel sorry for my husband. When I've found it hard to accept defeat, he's had to keep his mouth shut and as both my husband and trainer he's had to pull me back up from the bottom, especially when my performances were threatened by serious injuries.

"I'm glad he was there in Berlin because in moments of euphoria I needed his company, just as I did when I was experiencing failure. But I also finally realised how much pleasure I get from pole vaulting. I have many friends who are dissatisfied with their jobs but I can do my own thing with a smile.

"I love to jump and fall, to see that the bar is in place. I love that moment when I sit down after a workout to dinner and I have no strength to lift a cup," added Rogowska.

"I'm still really surprised that I won in Berlin. I was thinking in the morning of the competition about a medal: bronze, maybe silver, but not gold. Now, I am thinking again about improving my personal best. My first aim this year was to win at the Polish championships and I did that with 4.80, which was my best jump outdoors since 2005. My best of 4.83 (which she jumped in 2005 and still places her equal fourth on the world all-time list) has been there for a long time but now I'm motivated to do much better."

Rogowska has won many honours but she is still without a medal from the European Athletics Championships. In 2002, at the age of 21 and having only been vaulting for three years, she finished equal seventh but she then missed the 2006 edition owing to her persistent injury problems.

Now, mentally and physically back to top form, she can look ahead to the 20th European Athletics Championships in Barcelona next summer with renewed optimism and perhaps fill one of the few remaining gaps in her medal collection.