Yelena Isinbaeva, a record-shattering pole vaulter, with 28 world records and 2 Olympic golds behind her, was barred from participating in Rio 2016 despite her proven clean record and invaluable contribution to the sport. The 2016 Summer Olympics were supposed to become her swan song before she retired as an acting athlete.

The video was produced in a two-day period, shortly after Yelena was barred from the Olympics in late July 2016. In the video, she performed the vault in an empty track-and-field arena in her native Volgograd where most of her career’s training had taken place. She followed it up with a statement that this vault was her final act as an athlete but not her ultimate athletic achievement:

"No one can stop me. I’ll just keep reinventing myself"

The video was released on her social pages on August 19, coinciding with the day of Women’s Pole Vault Finals in Rio.

Yelena Isinbaeva also held a press conference in Rio de Janeiro that same day, where she announced the video to an international audience of journalists as her retirement statement.