An Olympic Gold Medalist

As reported in our RCB Bulletin dated 19 August 2008, it was announced during the weekly lunch that on 17 August 2008, former Olympic Pole Vaulting Gold Medal winner Sergey Bubka and a number of Rotarians visited Sun Children’s Village. Sergey’s second visit to the Village of this year drew media attention to the program, resulting in stories in the local press and China Daily. Sun Village was created in 1996 by Zhang Shuqin.
See here the pictures taken during the visit.

The original Bulletin and pictures were posted on the old website, later all trashed. I found back the original Bulletin: 080819_bulletin

In our auction list for the 2009 Rotary Ball, item 10 said:
10. T-shirt signed by Sergey Bubka, voted the world’s best athlete

More about Sergey Bubka

The interesting news is that Bubka is one of the contenders to be the next IOC President, to succeed Jacques Rogge.
See the article: “In I.O.C., New Obstacles for an Expert at Clearing Them”, NYT 14 August 2013 (updated link):
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/sports/olympics/15iht-bubka15.html

His name is also spelled Sergei Bubka:
Wikipedia:
Serhiy Nazarovych Bubka (Sergey Nazarovich Bubka; born 4 December 1963) is a retired Ukrainian pole vaulter. He represented the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991, was repeatedly voted the world’s best athlete, and in 2012 was one of 24 athletes inducted as inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame.
Bubka won six consecutive IAAF World Championships, an Olympics gold and broke the world record for men’s pole vaulting 35 times (17 outdoor and 18 indoor records). He was the first to clear 6.0 m and the only (as of July 2013) to clear 6.10 m.
He holds the current outdoor world record of 6.14 m, set on 31 July 1994 in Sestriere, Italy and the current indoor world record of 6.15 m, set on 21 February 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

This post was updated on 18 June 2021.