02/07/2001

The Longhorns ol' sports publicist, Jones Ramsey, should be excused for one of his most famous utterances. For when he said, "The only thing worse than track is field," Sergei Bubka was a mere tot growing up in the Ukrainian home of a Red Army sergeant.

Bubka hadn't won his Olympic gold medal in the pole vault.

He hadn't won the first of his six consecutive world championships in the vault.

He hadn't become the only human being to clear a bar 20 feet overhead.

He hadn't set the first of his 35 world records, a world record for world records, as it has turned out.

Bubka hadn't transformed the pole vault into one of athletics' most anticipated events, right up there with 100-meter dash and the mile and the 4x100 relay. He hadn't turned it into the raucous, hand-clapping, crowd-energizing event pole vaulting has become.

The career Bubka called an end to earlier this week at age 37 was one of the most-remarkable not only in track and field, but in sports. After all, he not only was the best his event ever witnessed. He seemed to be the best at it forever, from the day in 1983 when he won his first world title to now, as those who idolize him chase his feats.

"He was sort of the best at everything [that goes into vaulting],'' American record-holding vaulter Jeff Hartwig said Tuesday en route to next weekend's Golden Spike Tour stop in Fayetteville, Ark. "He was the Michael Jordan.''

Record breaker

As with basketball's longtime high flyer, everyone paid attention when Bubka started to take off. Something unprecedented was likely to happen, if yet another Bubka world record could be considered unprecedented.

He often toyed with records, having the bar moved up only by the slightest margin possible. Each record brought another bonus, which brought some to criticize Bubka as a mere mercenary.

But that was the way Bubka made his riches. It was the way most star track athletes made their money. Set records. Earn bonuses. Garner greater appearance fees for the next big meet.

That was the way the sprinters and milers did it. Bubka just proved that a pole vaulter could do the same if he was as spectacular and spell-bounding in his performance.

Bubka was that and more. He dared to use poles thought too big for a man like him, who stood just 6 feet tall and weighed 176. He was faster down the runway. More dramatic in his bending of the pole.

There were times Bubka broke records, and the competition, in what Jones Ramsey probably would admit was stunning fashion.

Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith wrote once of American vaulter Larry Jessee's remembrance of Bubka during a meet in London in 1984: "Jessee remembers...sitting next to Polish vaulter Tadeusz Slusarski, winner of the gold medal in the '76 Olympics and the silver in the '80. The bar was at 18-8 1/4. Bubka cleared it by a foot-and-a-half. The bar was moved to 19-4 1/4. Bubka cleared it with eight inches to spare. Slusarski took the cigarette from Jessee's mouth and inhaled it slowly. "It is over," he said quietly. "It is over."

Their hopes went up in smoke.

That was the way it ended for most who found themselves facing Bubka, right up to the 1997 World Championships, when Bubka was last at his best.

It was reported then that the favorite, Maksim Tarasov, a Russian, approached Bubka with hand outstretched just before the medal round. "Only afterwards do we shake," Bubka was to have told him with all the warmth of the Siberian wind.

Later, Bubka kept his word, shaking Tarasov's hand after he'd beaten the youngster for his record sixth consecutive world title. He always remembered those he easily could've left behind.

Pole vault's ambassador

Despite moving to Monte Carlo for a time, Bubka announced his retirement the other day in his native Ukraine, where he started a pole vaulting school years ago. Fiercely nationalistic, he now represents his homeland on the International Olympic Committee.

"Maybe my results in pole vaulting give the possibility for people to know Ukraine,'' he once told Newsday.

Certainly, Sergei Bubka's results in pole vaulting have given his sport once unforeseen possibilities.

"The sport will certainly miss Sergei," Hartwig admitted. "For years, we'll always be measured by what he did.''

And likely coming up short.

Kevin B. Blackistone can be reached at 214-977-8780 or at