Tatiana Grigorieva

Russian born Tatiana Grigorieva started her athletics career as a 400m hurdler. In 1997 she migrated to Australia with her then pole vaulter husband Viktor Chistiakov. It wasn’t until she was settled in Australia, living in Adelaide, that she first tried pole vaulting.

Rapid improvement saw Grigorieva break the 4m barrier in 1998. She won her first national title in 1999 with 4.25m. She made her World Championships debut soon after in Seville, where a breakthrough performance secured the new Australian citizen the bronze medal at an impressive 4.45m.

Women’s pole vault made its Olympic debut at Sydney 2000. At her debut Games on home soil Grigorieva set a new personal best of 4.6m to win the silver medal behind World Champion and record holder Stacy Dragila (USA). Both athletes failed to clear 4.65m, but Dragila won gold on a countback.

In 2006 she won her fourth national title and silver at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, to add to her Commonwealth gold medal from 2002.

Tatiana Grigorieva was inducted into the Athletics Australia Hall of Fame in April 2017.