FACTBOX-IAAF presidential candidate Sergey Bubka

BERLIN, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Ukrainian former Olympic champion Sergey Bubka announced his candidacy for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) presidency on Wednesday. Here are some facts about Bubka: * The 51-year-old dominated pole vault for more than a decade, winning the 1988 Seoul Olympics gold medal, six consecutive world athletics titles and four world indoor titles. He also set a total of 35 world records. * His Olympic career was not as stellar, winning his only medal -- gold -- in Seoul in 1988. He did not compete at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics due to the Soviet boycott. Injuries or a dip in form saw him fail to win a medal at the 1992, 1996 and the 2000 Olympics. * The son of a Red Army officer, Bubka almost drowned at the age of four when he fell into a barrel of water used for salting cabbage. * He officially retired in 2001 during a ceremony at his Pole Vault Stars meeting in Donetsk. In 2014, Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie broke Bubka's 20-year-old record at the same event, clearing 6.16m. * A former member of the Ukrainian parliament, Bubka holds a number of sports administration posts. He is an IAAF Vice President since 2007, a member of the International Olympic Committee's powerful Executive Board and head of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee. * The Ukrainian, who unsuccessfully ran for the IOC Presidency in 2013, has a number of business interests, including a sports club, a bakery business as well as interests in other ventures, such as gas stations, real estate management companies and food stores. (Compiled by Karolos Grohmann; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)