In past years it seemed that the Russian sports media typically didn’t have much presence on the European circuit, but they’d reach her by phone the next day and get some comments. Last year, when Isi was going for the GL jackpot, All Sport sent Natalia Maryanchik to all the Golden League meets, and she apparently managed to get “exclusive” interviews with Isi at each of them. So this year it looks like SE sent Mr. Butov to Rome at least, but paradoxically, this seems to mean we’re seeing less “exclusively Russian” material, at least about Isi.
The Russian reporters in attendance obviously understand English well enough that they didn’t see any reason to re-ask the same questions again at the end of the post-event press conference, when Isi briefly switched over to Russian to answer a few of their questions. The Russian T&F fans may be getting better overall coverage out of this new arrangement, since as I mentioned when I posted excerpts from Butov’s article about the press conference the day before the Golden Gala, he spoke personally with eight or ten of the high-profile athletes. But from my own selfish standpoint, the new deal seems like a step in the wrong direction.
So anyhow, I’m disinclined to do a full-out translation of the entire article, since there’s so little new material. He did include one or two things I haven’t seen elsewhere, so I guess I’ll just hit a couple of highlights. Evidently one of the very first questions she was asked in English was…
- Yelena, how would you describe your performance?
- I suppose like so: I jumped 4.70, then 4.85. Then I went to 4.95 and then set a world record. That’s how I’d describe it (laughter in the room). When I coped with 4.95, my coach Vitaly Petrov said: "Lena, this time try 5.03."
Okay, I got a chuckle out of it, but she needs to be careful. My impression is that reporters generally don’t like it when their subjects point out a vacuous question.
At the end, when she answered a few Russian questions, she was asked…
- For whom was today’s record more important: for you or Petrov?
- First of all for my coach. If he ever had any doubts about me, today I hope all the questions have been removed. Now he is a million percent confident in me!
I find it interesting that she puts it that way – like she was worried about failing to meet his expectations. On Saturday morning, when I sent my translation of the All Sport article to Andy Maetzler (Isi’s business manager), I confessed that I’d been a bit worried after her indoor campaign this year, but joked that maybe Petrov really knew what he was talking about when he said the transition would take a couple of years, but that she’d be jumping better than ever when she got through it. Andy wrote back about how happy he is for Vitaly – that he’s been doing a great job, but has been feeling quite a bit of pressure.
Well certainly neither one of them particularly needs my approval. But if what we saw Friday is any indication, I think they’ve both been doing a pretty darn good job.
Then right after that I've got her saying: "I didn't just 
