Nibbling Babka
So dominant was his outdoor record that it stood for 26 years, until 2020.
Sergey Bubka[1] broke the world record for the men's pole vault 35 times across his career. The pride of a newly independent Ukraine, he was sponsored by Nike, having a clause in his contract that awarded him $40,000 every time he set a world record.[2] Rather cleverly, like Spock the dolphin, Bubka nibbled at the record, breaking it 15 times (by 1cm each time, across both indoor and outdoor events) after signing Nike's contract, earning over USD 1.3M in today's dollars.[3] So dominant was his outdoor record that it stood for 26 years, until 2020.
Despite his folk hero status in Ukraine, perhaps his cheek was actually a symptom of his greed. After the war broke out in April 2022 between Russia and Ukraine, a company that he owns[4] was found to have been supplying fuel to the Russian puppet state in Donetsk.[5]
https://web.archive.org/web/20170103004237/https://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/sore-bubka-soar-article-1.747855. ↩︎
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1992?amount=600000. ↩︎
https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/24160263/. ↩︎
With his brother (also a medal-winning pole vaulter) listed as the company's director on these contracts; https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-fallen-hero-sergei-bubka/. ↩︎
