A total of 54 athletes were recognized on the gala night, that was held in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, including ones like multiple World and Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, tennis stars Roger Federer and Justine Henin, basketball player Pau Gasol and fellow Hungarian modern pentathlete Zsuzsanna Vörös.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Vandy successfully cleared a height of 4.00 metres in the women's pole vault, an event which was later dominated by world-record holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia.