He formally retired in 2001, yet he is still very much involved in the sport. Sergey Nazarovich Bubka was born on December 4, 1963, as the son of a Red Army praporshik in Voroshilovgrad, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. He was always interested in athletics and excelled in sprinting and long jumping as a child. At age 14, he started training daily for three hours with his father, who was an Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting. Sergey Bubka's first major international success came at the 1987 World Championships in Rome, where he won the silver medal in long jump. A year later, he became the first man to break 7 meters (v. Moschou of Greece) and remains the only one to do so today. In 1994, he jumped 693 feet (213.6 meters) at a competition in Beograd (Belgrade), which at the time was a world record. He has been elected president of the Russian Athletics Federation several times but has never taken up the post due to health issues. After retiring from competitions, he has worked as a coach and manager for various athletes. His clients have included Yelena Isinova, Anna Chicherova, Olga Zavyalova, and Tatyana Lebedeva. He has also served as director of sports for two Russian universities. In 2007, Bubka suffered serious injuries when a car accident killed his wife and daughter. He himself was badly injured and spent several months in a coma.