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    The Great Gordino Newsletter - Issue 325 - Mon 25th Jul 2005
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    Archive Issues online at - gordonbryan.com/archive

    Hi There,

    I hope everything is ok wherever you are.

    Yelena Isinbayeva.
    Long time readers will know full well who I'm talking about.
    More recent readers soon will, as today I focus on women.

    Ok, my old buddy Yelena.
    On Friday in London she broke the world record for the women's
    pole vault.
    In fact she broke it twice.

    On the first occasion, she took it to 4.96, raising the record by
    her familiar 1 centimetre.
    She's had loads of criticism for this.
    She gets around $50,000 every time she sets the record, and it
    has been said many times, that in only upping the mark 1
    centimetre a time, she is encouraging the warping of sporting
    values with money.

    Hmm, I can see the point, but my instant reaction to that has
    been, 'ok, *you* go set the world record, and then start to
    moan.'
    As a professional athlete, why shouldn't she maximise her
    earnings, that's just business, right?

    On Friday, Sergey Bubka was in the crowd, the pole vaulter who
    set the male record 35 times (you guessed it, 1cm a time).
    It was rumoured that Isinbayeva would go for the magical 5
    metre breakthrough mark.

    Once she set the 4.96 record, most people expected her to stop,
    so the roar was huge when it was announced she was going for 5
    metres.
    Maybe it's just me, but I could feel the excitement through the
    TV!

    Anyway she sailed over, the first woman to vault 5 metres.
    How high will she go?
    Will any woman ever get to 6 metres?

    Who knows, and if it ever happens, it will be years away, so
    Isinbayeva will be remembered as the first over 5.

    For her critics, I would say that she lost a potential $200,000 by
    setting the new height on Friday, so now maybe they'll lay off a
    bit.

    In my book, impressive, and that's coming from me who tried
    the pole vault, and struggled to get over a height that high
    jumpers clear!

    By the way, the British record was also set on Friday, at 4.47.
    Measly compared to Isinbayeva?
    Maybe, but the facilities for pole vault in the UK are virtually non
    existent, whereas Isinbayeva trains at a purpose built centre, a
    left over from the soviet days.
    That goes to show that preparation and groundwork will bring
    results, and you don't get a much better goal achievement
    nugget than that!

    A series on TV at the mo is called 'The World's Most
    Photographed', which actually shows surprisingly few photos,
    concentrating instead on the subject's life story.
    Interesting nonetheless, and last week it focused on Audrey
    Hepburn.

    I always knew that she had done a lot of work for Unicef in her
    later life, but didn't know that as a teenager she had helped the
    Dutch resistance in the war.
    Again, impressive.

    Apart from sport and entertainment, a subject I thoroughly enjoy
    is business.
    In 'The Dragon's Den', businesses seeking investors are put in
    front of a group of multi-millionaires, who are not afraid to
    pull ideas apart.
    One of those 'Dragons' is Rachel Elnaugh, who founded a
    company that promotes exclusive gift days, i.e. race cars,
    balloon rides, etc.

    All well and good, but last week I spotted in the paper that her
    company is in more than a bit of trouble, with big redundancies
    on the cards.
    The path of business is not guaranteed to run smooth.

    Women have the reputation of having a hard time working with
    each other in business, where it seems bitchiness lurks beneath
    the surface, and more often than not, above the surface.
    I have to say, in all my various different experiences, I honestly
    can't remember actually seeing it for myself, I've always seen
    women working fine together.
    In the first series of Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice', however, it
    was clear to see.
    In the first series of Sir Alan Sugar's UK, version, guess what -
    more bitching.
    In the second series of the Trump show now airing, the
    bitchiness had virtually brought the women to a standstill, failing
    week after week.

    Here's the thing though.
    This week, Trump mixed it up, by putting the only woman from
    the men's team, in charge of the women's team.
    This didn't go down well with the rest of the women, like several
    cups of cold sick in fact, and despite pulling the team together,
    the women marginally lost the task.

    In the previous few weeks, Trump had based his firing
    guidelines less on the actual task, and more on the team
    characteristics of individuals.
    This week, although saying that the team leader had decisive
    leadership skills, she was fired because it was her mistake that
    cost the failure.

    Now to me, that contradicts.
    Trump can't tell me that he hasn't made decisive moves that
    have gone wrong?

    A strange decision, but again, that's business.
    People can change the goalposts at any time, and you just have
    to put up with it!

    I'll finish off by mentioning another woman with impressive goal
    achievement - Eileen Collins, Mission Commander of the Discovery
    space shuttle due to launch Tuesday.

    Right then, I'm off to think a bit further about women, purely for
    research purposes.

    'Til Next Time,
    Health and Happiness,
    Gordon
    email me at gordon@gordonbryan.com - you'll have to copy and paste
    thanks to the idiot online spammers!



    
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