Yelena Soboleva Earns My 2008 Female Indoor AOY Vote

Story written by Eric.

Last week-end's NCAA Championships officially closed the lid on the 2008 indoor season, and there were no shortage of great performances and record-setting marks accomplished around the globe by athletes on the elite level down to United States prep athletes who have yet to get much press or experience on the international stage.

Three women produced world records this season, and scores of other ones sprinted, jumped and leaned their ways to superlative marks which would have made headlines and captured votes on their own merits had the super elite failed to strike gold when it counted.

Yelena Soboleva, Susanna Kallur and Yelena Isinbayeva - names which reverberated from stadium to stadium this winter as they competed at their absolute bests this indoor campaign - each etched their names in the record annuals, and were each picked for gold in Valencia two week-ends ago when the entrants were declared.

Soboleva and Isinbayeva found favour and fortune on their side during the two-day event by coming up with victories.

Kallur, who led the world at 60m hurdles, had the untimely displeasure of becoming injured following her first-round heat and was never able to make it to the semi-finals, unfortunately, knocking her from the top of my personal AOY list despite her previously undefeated season and capturing three of the top-5 times ever recorded indoors in the event.

So that left the two Valencia teammates who share the same name, Yelena, up to take the honours.

Soboleva and Kallur started off the 2008 world-record chase by breaking all-time standards on 10-February, with Kallur, competing in Karlsruhe, knocking off a dubious hurdles record set 18 years and six days earlier by Ludmila Engquist - from whose dubious shadow she was attempting to run under.

Soboleva, on the other hand, knocked a few ticks off her own 1.500m world indoor record the same evening in Moscow.

The last of the record trio, Isinbayeva, competed six days later in Donetsk, Ukraine - a meeting site where she has earlier found vaulting nirvana, and set her third-consecutive world-record at the meet which vaulting legend Sergey Bubka had arranged.

The two athletes - tied at one world-record apiece - were even on paper, but one understands clearly that Isinbayeva, the superstar, having set her fourth world indoor record in as many years, was clearly ahead of her rival.

That was until Isinbayeva's next competition brought her back down to earth and behind Russian Svetlana Feofanova at Pedro's Cup in Bydgoszcz, Poland four days later, leaving Soboleva and Kallur undefeated prior to the world championships.

Soboleva, who finished the winter campaign with three personal bests, three national records and a world record to her credit, finished undefeated in five finals and contested one more meet than had Isinbayeva.

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