Sixteen Year Old Vicky Parnov Won the 5th IAAF World Youth Championship Pole Vault Event

Sixteen Year Old Vicky Parnov Won The 5th IAAF World Youth Championship Pole Vault

How good are youths when it comes to sports competitions? What are the standards that you would expect at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games? For pole vault event, look no further that Australia's Vicky Parnov who won the 5th IAAF World Youth Championship Pole Vault event in 1997 to get an idea of how good these athletes can be.

Australia's Vicky Parnov (not in picture) was only 16 years old when she won the gold medal for pole vault at the 5th IAAF World Youth Championship in Ostrava, Czech Republic. She cleared 4.30 metres to beat off the challenge from defending champion Ekaterini Stefanidi.

Before this competition, Vicky Parnov experienced competition in the World Youth Championships in Marrakech in 2005 when she came in fourth, and the World Junior Championships in Beijing in 2006 when she came in third in the girls pole vault event. She also competed in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne but could only manage to get into sixth position.

Parnov was born in Moscow and raised in Australia. Her family genes are heavily weighted towards sports. Her aunt Tatyana Grigorieva was the silver medallist in the 200o Olympic pole vault. Her gandmother Natalya Pechonkina was the 1968 Olympic Games 400-metre race bronze medallist. According to Australian team leaders, her twelve-year-old sister Liz apparently can clear 3.65 metres.

Let's hope more athletes like Vicky Parnov can make their way to Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games and create plenty of sports-related buzz.