Tatiana Grigorieva has marked her first major international competition in three years by making the final of the pole vault at the world athletics championships.

In her first Australian team since winning the gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Grigorieva reached Wednesday's final with a clearance of 4.40m in the qualifying rounds.

The Sydney Olympic silver medallist did not qualify for last year's Athens Games or the 2003 world championships and only scraped into the team for Helsinki with a qualifying jump of 4.47m three days before the deadline.

"I was worrying about how I would compete in the situation because I haven't competed at this kind of level for a while," she said.

"I just wanted to get in the final. I didn't come here just to compete in the qualifying rounds.

"It feels really good, it feels fantastic."

She made a bad start when she failed with her first attempt at 4.00m but came back to clear the starting height and then progress through to make 4.40m.

She failed on all three attempts at 4.45m, but managed to qualify 11th of the 13 finalists.

Russian world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva cleared 4.45m by about a metre and will be near impossible to beat in Wednesday's final.

Grigorieva provided Australia's first piece of good news after two days at the championships, with Josh Ross knocked out in the semi finals of the 100m.

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