Isinbayeva is one of only eleven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Armand Duplantis, Jacques Freitag, Kirani James, Faith Kipyegon, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels, and David Storl) to win World Championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.

Six months after having taken up pole-vaulting she won her first major victory at age 16 during the 1998 World Youth Games in Moscow, Russia with a height of 4.00 m. It was her third athletic competition.

[citation needed] She jumped the same height at the 1998 World Junior Championships in Athletics in Annecy, France, but this left her 10 cm away from the medal placings.

In 1999, Isinbayeva improved on this height at the 1999 World Youth Championships in Athletics in Bydgoszcz, Poland when she cleared 4.10 m to take her second gold medal.

The same year the women's pole vault made its debut as an Olympic event in Sydney, Australia where Stacy Dragila of the United States took gold.

At a meeting at Donetsk, Ukraine, Isinbayeva set a new indoor world record, with a height of 4.83 m only to see Feofanova increase this by two centimetres the following week.

Eleven days later, in Madrid, Spain, she added an additional 2 cm to clear 4.95 m. In Crystal Palace, London on 22 July, after improving the record to 4.96 m, she raised the bar to 5.00 m. She then became the first woman in history to clear the once mythical five-metre barrier in pole vaulting, achieving the monumental mark with a single attempt.

She cleared 4.91 m. In March she successfully defended her World Indoor title in front of a homeland crowd in Moscow, Russia.

On 10 February 2007 in Donetsk, Ukraine, Isinbayeva broke the world indoor pole vault record again, by clearing 4.93 metres.

[11] During the indoor 2008 season, Isinbayeva set her twenty-first world record, clearing 4.95 metres on 16 February 2008 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

[12] On 11 July, at her first outdoor competition of the season, Rome's Golden Gala, Isinbayeva broke her own world record, clearing 5.03 metres.

[14] A few weeks later, at the Aviva London Grand Prix, Isinbayeva and Stuczynski competed together for the first time of the outdoor season.

[17] On 23 November in Monaco, she was selected World Athlete of the Year by the IAAF for the third time in her career, along with Jamaican male sprinter Usain Bolt.

[19] At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany, Isinbayeva lost her second competition of the year after failing to achieve a successful vault.

[20] However, Yelena Isinbayeva broke her own women's pole vault world record at the Weltklasse Golden League meeting by clearing 5.06 m. On 2 September she was given the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Sports.

[21] The Russian cleared her opening height of 4.60 m at the championships in Doha, but she faltered at 4.75 m and she ended up in fourth place and outside of the medals for a second consecutive time.

[22] Following another disappointment at a major championships, she decided to take time out from the sport to recuperate, saying: "A break from competing is absolutely necessary for me.

[23] She missed the opportunity to defend her title at the 2010 European Championships and she was succeeded by her compatriot Svetlana Feofanova, while Fabiana Murer went on to claim the inaugural Diamond League pole vault series.

[24] The Russian Winter Meeting in February 2011 was the venue for her comeback and she demonstrated her resurgence of form with a first time clearance of 4.81 m, comfortably defeating Feofanava.

[35] After she became chair of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency's supervisory board, IAAF taskforce chair Rune Andersen stated, "It is difficult to see how this helps to achieve the desired change in culture in track and field, or how it helps to promote an open environment for Russian whistleblowers", noting that Isinbayeva had called a WADA report "groundless" without reading it, publicly criticised whistleblowers (Andrei Dmitriev, Yuliya Stepanova, and Vitaliy Stepanov), and had not signed a pledge for clean sport or endorsed a Russian anti-doping group.

[36] On 15 August 2013, Isinbayeva courted controversy by condemning homosexuality, criticizing athletes for supporting LGBT rights and coming out in favour of a law banning "homosexual propaganda that targets children" in Russia which had drawn sharp criticism from some representatives of the international community and had led activists to call for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian resort of Sochi, calling foreign athletes to "respect Russian traditions".

[39] Earlier, Isinbayeva had made critical remarks in response to a gesture made by the Swedish high-jumper Emma Green Tregaro and others who had painted their fingernails in rainbow colours as an expression of support for gays and lesbians in Russia and in protest against recently passed laws banning what the Russian government described as propaganda for nontraditional sexual relations directed at minors.

[52] In July 2023, it was reported by the Anti-Corruption Foundation that Isinbayeva had acquired Spanish citizenship and held multiple properties in Spain.