(AFP)
Updated: 2007-08-24 15:16

OSAKA, Japan - Russian world pole vault record holder Yelena Isinbayeva may be the most confident athlete in sport.

If you do not think so, just ask her.

"I know if I do my best, it is impossible for somebody to beat me," the Olympic and world champion said at a news conference on Friday.

Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia clears the bar to win the women's pole vault at the IAAF Golden League athletics meet in Oslo June 15, 2007. [Reuters]

"There's no chance for anybody," she added. "Sorry, it's like this."

She is so big a favourite in the 11th world championships which begin on Saturday, that she professes no concern for the competition.

"I don't care about my rivals," she said. "More important and more dangerous is myself."

The former gymnast has not lost a final this year, going 11 for 11. In three years, she has been beaten only three times in 42 competitions. Twice the losses came because she no-heighted. The other loss was on a countback.

In meets where she has cleared a height, no one has jumped higher since July 4, 2004, according to Track & Field News magazine.

Twenty times she has set a world record with 11 of them coming outdoors.

Her ambition is to raise the bar to 5.16 or 5.20 metres and beat former Ukranian Sergei Bubka's string of 35 men's pole vault records.

But her record machine has slowed in recent years. Not since the Helsinki world championships, when she cleared 5.01 metres, has she raised the bar.

The reason, in part, has been the lack of competition, she said.

Sometimes she may wait two to three hours to begin vaulting while competitors fall by the side.

"That is more difficult," she said, "but pole vault is still my passion."