b. 1963
Sergey Bubka
Pole vaulter, 35 world records
Until 1985 no pole vaulter in the world had cleared 6 metres. Serhii Bubka did it first, went on to break world records 35 times and won six World Championships in a row. He later headed the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine (2005–2022).
Key accomplishments
- Olympic champion in 1988 (Seoul)
- Six-time world champion (1983–1997), the only athlete to win six world titles in the same individual event
- 35 world records (17 outdoors, 18 indoors); the first man to clear 6 metres (1985)
- Hero of Ukraine (2001); member of the IAAF Hall of Fame (2012)
- President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine (2005–2022), Vice President of the IAAF / World Athletics (2007–2023), IOC member (since 1999; as of October 2026)
Six metres
On 13 June 1985 in Paris, Serhii Bubka became the first person in the world to clear 6 metres in the pole vault. He went on to set world records 35 times: 17 outdoors (best 6.14 m, Sestriere, 1994) and 18 indoors (6.15 m, Donetsk, 1993). Both records stood for more than 20 years. His name went into the Guinness Book of Records for the most world records in athletics.
Six gold medals
Bubka was born in 1963 in Luhansk. He took up the pole vault in 1973 in his home town under coach Vitalii Petrov, and from 1979 he trained in Donetsk. In 1983, aged 19, he won the first-ever World Athletics Championships as an outsider, and then five more in a row, through 1997. No other athlete has won six world titles in the same individual event.
The Olympics were less kind. In 1988 in Seoul Bubka became Olympic champion, but in 1984 the USSR boycotted the Games, in 1992 his tactics let him down, and in 1996 and 2000 injuries got in the way. In 2001 he was made a Hero of Ukraine.
After the sport
In 1999 Bubka was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee, and in 2024 he was re-elected for another eight years. From 2005 to 2022 he headed the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, and from 2007 to 2023 he was a vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (now World Athletics). In 2002–2006 he was a member of parliament (elected on the list of the For a United Ukraine! bloc, later in the Party of Regions faction), and in 2010–2014 an unpaid adviser to President Viktor Yanukovych.
Debates and assessments
In 2023 journalists at Bihus.Info reported that Serhii Bubka co-owned companies registered in Russia, among them Monblan, which sells fuel in the occupied part of the Donetsk region. The SBU opened a criminal case on aiding the aggressor state. His brother Vasyl, Monblan’s general director, became a suspect in the case over trade with the occupiers; these reports do not say that Serhii Bubka himself was served a notice of suspicion. Serhii Bubka said he has nothing to do with any business in the occupied territories. On 26 February 2026 the skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych called in the Verkhovna Rada for Bubka to be stripped of the title Hero of Ukraine. In April 2026 the Minister of Youth and Sports, Matvii Bidnyi, said he saw no legal grounds for this: such a decision would be possible if the facts in the reports were proven and assessed by law enforcement.
Why it matters today
Bubka is called one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. His 6 metres became a new horizon for pole vaulters, and his six world titles in a row a yardstick for a long career at the top.
