Vladimir Yashchenko
Vladimir Jaschtschenko ( born January 12, 1959 in Zaporizhia, Ukrainian SSR, † November 30, 1999 ) was a Ukrainian high jumper, who competed for the Soviet Union. The 1.93m and in its competition time 84 kg heavy athlete jumped as a teenager world record and became European Champion.
1976 Jaschtschenko had jumped 2.22 meters, which was ranked 22 of the annual global leaderboard. On July 3, 1977, he jumped at the junior international match USA vs. USSR in Richmond first with 2.27 meter junior world record, then with 2.31 meters European record, and finally with 2.33 meters world record. He improved the Best of Dwight Stones from the previous year by one centimeter. Shortly thereafter he was in Donetsk with 2.30 meters European Junior Champion.
On March 12, 1978 the European Indoor Championships in Milan, he improved in two ways the indoor world record of 2.33 meters and 2.35 meters. He won ahead of Rolf Beilschmidt from East Germany, who had skipped 2.29. This was the last major international competition in which were the same place two straddle Springer front of the interpreters of the Fosbury flop.
On June 16, 1978 in Tbilisi Jaschtschenko improved the world record to 2.34 meters. At the European Championships Jaschtschenko won with 2.30 meters before the flop Springer Alexandr Grigoriev, also USSR, and Rolf Beilschmidt. In the same year he was voted European Athlete of the Year.
Shortly after his 20th birthday in Vienna Jaschtschenko defended his European Indoor Championship title with 2.26 meters in front of his team-mates Gennadi Belkow and the German Andre Schneider leaves. Two weeks after the European Indoor Championships Jaschtschenko jumped in Fort Worth in the hall about 2.29 meters.
After the indoor season 1979 Jaschtschenko had surgery on his knee ankle bone. This began a long series of operations, from which he never recovered. In 1983, he jumped again 2.10 meters. After the last Hochsprungweltrekordler came in the straddle - style into oblivion. In 1999, he died at the age of just 40 years after many years of alcohol problems in liver cirrhosis.