Sergey Bubka was a talented pole vaulter from Ukraine. He won the world championship in 1983, but that only started a string of wins that made him a household name among pole vaulters. Besides other world championships, he set 35 world records. He kept breaking his own records, and he only bested himself by a fraction of an inch each time he did it. But why? The answer is quite understandable, once you read the story at mental_floss.