The ugly truth for Yelena Isinbayeva is that too many of her competitors have plain faces and talent. She is the self-styled beauty of athletics, a Volgograd vixen who says that she is happy if her rivals call her a harpy or a bitch while she bestrides centre stage as the sport's ultimate drama queen. The politically correct should look away now.

“Every girl on the track has a duty to be nice-looking and womanly,” she said. “I remember a very famous athlete said that we had to be athletes or women. I don't agree. Why do we have to be an athlete and have a man's body and be ugly? Why can we only be beautiful outside sport?”

Some of her rivals, she says, subscribe to that view, the inference being that they are ugly. It is unsurprising, then, that she does not get along with her main competitors, her Olympic gold not going down well with Jenn Stuczynski and Svetlana Feofanova, the rump of the pole-vault podium. Stuczynski, the American, spoke about “kicking some Russian butt” before the Olympic Games in Beijing in the summer. “She must know her place,” Isinbayeva countered.

This might all be knockabout stuff were it not for the fact Isinbayeva is arguably the most famous female athlete in the world. She has set 24 pole-vault world records, the most recent coming in the Olympic final in August, has not lost a leading championship for five years and was named female athlete of the year in Monaco on Sunday. Her fame has landed invitations to meet Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, and to the inauguration of Dmitri Medvedev, the President. It is strange, then, to hear her saying that she is searching for her mission and is racked with fears for the future.

“If I didn't do the pole vault then I'm nobody,” she said in a hotel room on Casino Square. “I'm a simple girl from the street and nobody would pay attention. Previous athletes have achieved more and we forget about them, but the next generation will remember my era. I make money and an image. When I went to the Sydney Olympics [in 2000] I felt like an ugly duckling, like a stick insect. I was out of place. Now I try to be beautiful. On the track we are the centre of attention. If we are ugly then nobody will be interested. They wouldn't listen to the result, they would just say: 'Uggh, she is so horrible.'”

For a woman who can clear 5.05 metres, Isinbayeva sounds as if she has a low opinion of her sport's intrinsic worth. However, she loves the pole vault, calling it “aesthetic”, and believes that looks are a passport to a wider audience. And how that audience matters. “I'm like an actress,” she said. “I'm alone before the world. When I go to the track, in my mind this is my show. I think everyone comes to see me.

“I'm a bit afraid for the future because I know I will not have the same feelings. I won't be able to be on a podium, I won't be able to hear the Russian anthem. I know it will be very soon. I won't be able to feel happy and afraid at the same time. I think life will be boring compared to this life.”

She then spoke of a famous Russian admiral who had money and fame and family and lovers, but lost it all and died impoverished in a park. “My life is beautiful and everyone loves me, but who knows what will happen in the future?” Isinbayeva said. “Maybe everyone will forget about me, too.”

She is 26 and plans to retire after, and possibly at, the 2012 Olympics in London. She thinks that her mission is connecting people because she can speak to presidents and plumbers - her father is the latter - and has helped to finance an orphanage at home. Despite the girlish talk and promise to decorate her poles with flowers next season, Isinbayeva is indomitable. She said that she gets frustrated waiting for others to clear the lower heights so that she can make her grand entrance. “I lie down and wait,” she said. “I cover myself with a towel so the cameramen do not get in my face. I think about nice things. Not jumps. I want them to clear the heights because if they fail they get another two goes and it drags on.”

Her gymnastics background and athleticism, coupled with the input of the former coach of Sergei Bubka, the men's pole-vaulting legend, ensure that she remains head and shoulders above the rest; in Beijing the winning margin was almost a foot. Isinbayeva is a national icon and bristles at the notion of Russia as a country with a doping problem. “Our athletics federation and the Government are doing everything they can, but the people say, 'Oh Russians, they are blah blah blah,'” she said. “I think it is because we are so strong that they want to destroy us. I think it is a political thing.”

That shows a partisan myopia, given that the Russian federation is cynically trying to backdate doping bans on seven athletes to free them to compete at next year's World Championships, but Isinbayeva's pride is evident in all she says. It should not matter how she looks, but this is a sport that has been disfigured by doping, and style over substance abuse has its role. Beauty may be only skin deep, but, as Dorothy Parker also said, ugly goes clean to the bone.