It is a mid December afternoon and the Stade Louis II in Monaco is empty save for one, solitary figure. Round and round the stadium she jogs, lifting her knees high and jerking her arms before undergoing a series of stretches that bends her body to, seemingly, breaking point. It is only when Yelena Isinbeyeva enters her fifth hour of training that she calls it a day, but she will back today, and tomorrow, and for as long as it takes until she is on the winners' podium again.
"I want to be the greatest female in the history of athletics," she says, as she takes a sip from an energy drink and wipes the sweat from her brow. "But, right now, I am a loser."
By anyone's standards that last statement is somewhat harsh. The 27-year-old pole vaulter would go down as one of the greatest of all time even if she threw away her pole today for good, but it is the ignominy of failing to clear a single vault during last August's world championships final that sees the serial winner pushing herself harder than ever.
To put this into perspective, Isinbeyeva not winning any medal, let alone the gold medal, and indeed defend a world title she had won for the past two championships, was akin to Usain Bolt finishing eighth and last in the 100 metres final. The Russian came to Berlin with two Olympic gold medals to add to those two world titles, plus the last three world indoor titles to add to her European outdoor and indoor crowns. She was the reigning champion in everything she could possibly be reigning champion in and was expected to break world record number 28, which would have been 16 outdoor and 12 indoor. That's 28 world records!
Instead, and inexplicably, the girl from Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, failed with her first attempt at 4.75 metres, then failed twice more at 4.85 metres to finish last in the final, and leave the Olympic stadium in floods of tears. It was the first time since 2003 that she had not won a major pole vault competition. One week later she broke her own world record in Zurich with a vault of 5.06 metres.
"You know what the problem was," she says, in a heavily-accented English. "I knew what everyone was thinking. "Oh, here comes Yelena. She turns up, she wins, maybe she breaks another world record. Big deal. Same old story. The truth is, that's what I was thinking, too. It felt like just another day, not the world final.
"Nobody seemed interested in the crowd. Maybe people have grown tired of watching me win. It's become boring. Usain's the new kid on the block and everyone wants to watch him smash world records. I knew then that everything was wrong. My legs felt heavy, my run up wasn't right and there was nothing I could do about it. After my first failed effort I went over to see my coach and he said: "Where are you, Yelena? You are not in Berlin. Please come back."
"That made me feel nervous which is unusual for me, especially when I'm facing a vault I can normally clear in my sleep. When I missed with my third attempt I landed on the mat and didn't know what to do. For a split second I convinced myself that none of it had happened. I would wake up, discover it was all a bad dream and then go and win the world title. I almost burst out laughing because it was such an unusual situation for me to find myself in.
"Then I started to cry as it began to sink in. I'd just lost my world title and I was angry with myself. Later that same evening I was eating in the athlete's restaurant when the medals ceremony for the women's pole vault came on to the big TV screen on the wall. I forced myself to watch it. It was hard. It really hurt my ego. But I'm glad I did. I'd forgotten what it was like to lose and I really don't like being called the former world champion."
She fixes you with a stare for a second, her friendly expression transformed into something quite ruthless. "It won't happen again."
For all her staggering success in sport Isinbeyeva knows all about setbacks in life. From five to fifteen years of age she had set her sights on becoming the best gymnast in the world. She'd been told all about compatriots Olga Korbut and Nellie Kim by her plumber father and shop assistant mother and, as she set her eyes on the small TV screen in her tiny family apartment, she allowed herself to dream.
"I'd watch famous, beautiful, rich people on TV and find motivation from them," she explains. "I reasoned that they'd worked hard to get to where they had in life, and that was what I had to do, as well.
"Our apartment was only 48 square metres in size, which is very small for a family of four and, of course, it meant I shared a room with my younger sister. My parents had three occupations to support my gymnastics but still I wore second hand clothes because we couldn't afford anything nice. I dreamt of being rich."
At ten years of age Isinbeyeva won the Russian national gymnastics championships but, at 15, her dreams were seemingly shattered when her coach took her to one side, explained that she had grown too tall, and that she was not going to make it any more in a sport Russian women had always excelled in. "It was the worst day of my life," she recalls. "I didn't know what to do. Everything I had worked for, everything I had dreamed about was over. I cried for days and days."
But there was a chink of light. The year before the pole vault had been introduced as a new, official event in the global athletics schedule for women. Isinbeyeva was introduced to a pole vault coach by her gymnastics teacher after her prowess as a gymnast was noted and seen as a potential advantage when it came to the vault. "The coach said to me: "If you listen to me, if you follow my instructions and if you trust me, you will be like Bubka." And I replied: "Bubka? Who is she?""
She laughs as she recounts this story against herself. Sergey Bubka, of course, was the great Russian pole vaulter who broke 35 world records in the men's pole vault between the early 1980's and late 1990's but it took no time before Isinbeyeva realised she had discovered her true vocaction. "When I joined the class there were ten of us, and I was the only girl," she says. "The boys weren't too happy about me, but I wasn't complaining. Within six months the coach decided to lose seven of our group. He chose to stick with me and two boys. I started learning the pole vault in November, 1997. In June 1998 I won the World Youth Games in Moscow. That's when I knew I might be special."
Her background undoubtedly helped. Her father is a member of a small, ethnic group of Tabasarans who mostly live in Dagestan. "They are mountain people and they are wild," she explains, throwing her arms out wide to emphasise "wild." Her mother has Cossack blood in her. "You know about the Cossacks, yes?" she asks. "So, you see, I have explosive ingredients in me."
Then there is her home town. "Volgograd remains very important to Russians because it was here that the Russians turned the Germans back in the war. Many lives were lost, and to this day we have ruined buildings to remind us of that time, but it means that everyone who comes from my city is very proud. We adopt a lot of pride in everything we do."
By 2005 Isinbeyeva had already been crowned Olympic and world champion but she then made an extraordinary decision to improve her sporting lot. "I felt uncomfortable in Volgograd because every single person knew me and I was struggling to get motivated. I was a big fish in a small pond and if I couldn't improve I was going to stop. I felt empty inside. That's when I decided to change everything: my coach, my home, my lifestyle. I moved to Monaco and spent the first few weeks crying every night because I felt so lonely, but it also made me confront myself. I had to prove myself all over again."
It is a fine example of how single-minded the very best in sport tend to be. Although she has made friends since arriving in the Principality Isinbeyeva, who is single, has left her family behind back in Volgograd and only gets to see them sporadically when she has a window in her gruelling schedule. While her younger sister travels around the world dutifully with her husband, a trapeze artist in the Moscow State Circus, Isinbeyeva flits between Monte Carlo and Italy to hone her well-crafted skills. On the face of it the move away from Russia seemed like an unnecessary risk but, like Nick Faldo re-constructing his swing, it paid off, at least professionally.
Four years after she upped sticks Isinbeyeva came to Berlin with another Olympic title, two more world outdoor championships, and a host of other titles and world records to her name. She had the wealth she craved for, and she had provided for all her family. The move to Monaco had done the trick, or at least it seemed that way, but what happened in the German capital has created the next chapter in Isinbeyeva's story.
"I'm happy I lost," she announces. "I really am. It's given me fresh motivation. Now I feel strong again. My mentality is fantastic. I proved it the following week when I broke the world record in Zurich. It shows that Berlin was an accident. It was, as you English say, a bad day at the office.
"That's why I'm feeling more focussed at this time of the year than ever before. I plan to win the world indoors next year, and the European championships, then get back my world title in 2011, and then win my third Olympic gold medal in London. I plan to break Bubka's record of 35 world records as well. I know I've achieved many great things, but I'm not 100% happy. I want to be seen in the future to be the greatest woman in the history of athletics."
Yelena Isinbeyeva smiles as she realises what she has just proclaimed. "No, make that in the history of the universe," she adds, and bursts out laughing. "You see, I am happy again, and I know there is still so much I can achieve. It took a defeat to tell me this."
Nobody will even begin to doubt her.
