He is a star that has long shone in the world of athletics. But his light is beginning to flicker. Former Olympic champion and former world record holder in pole vault Renaud Lavillenie is playing his future this Sunday at the French championships in Angers (Maine-et-Loire). He needs to clear a bar at 5m82 to secure his ticket to the Olympic Games in Paris. Otherwise, it will be the twilight of an immense champion.
“I hear people say: “He has to stop, he’s had his time…”, but I don’t care. what these people think, they don’t know my motivations“. At 37, Renaud Lavillenie has lost none of his outspokenness. And to drive the point home: “I’m not in sports business, I’m here to have fun. I don’t see why, just before the Paris Games, I would stop and say: “No, it’s okay, I’ll give way to others“”.
The Clermont native, however, is likely to have to give up his place to others. For over a month now, weekend after weekend, he has been trying to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games. In vain. On May 22 in Clermont-Ferrand, he failed his three attempts at 5m35. A week later, in Duszniki (Poland), he cleared 5m72, but was unable to clear the bar at 5m82, the height that is the sesame for the Paris Olympics. He then got stuck at 5m70 in Pierre-Bénite (Lyon Metropolis) on June 8, at 5m40 in Grenoble (Isère) on June 19. And in Toulouse, last week, he failed his three attempts at 5m50.
Ridiculous heights when compared to the 5m98 that allowed him to become Olympic champion in London in 2012 or the 6m16, which he cleared in 2014 to set a world record that remained his for six years (2014-2020).
“What I am being asked to do to go to the Games is a performance that I have already achieved more than 150 times in competition.“, recognizes Renaud Lavillenie.”If I add the training, I did the math recently, I must have passed this bar between 400 and 500 times in my entire life. As a result, there is a certain form of relaxation, I tell myself that I knew how to do it. And my body remembers“.
But his body also remembers his hamstring injury.”I had about 90% of the tendon detached, it was hanging on by almost a thread. The risk was total rupture“. In September 2023, Renaud Lavillenie decides to have surgery. A high-risk bet since the surgical procedure then requires four weeks of immobilization and several months of rehabilitation. A race against time then begins to achieve a complete recovery in less than a year. An adventure that the journalists of France 3 Auvergne, Jean-Luc Roussilhe, Mathieu Verlaine, Yoann Dorion and Stéphane Trentesaux recount in the latest issue of Enquêtes de région.
“I spent long weeks stuck on my couch, then months with four weekly sessions with the physiotherapists. But I never gave up on the goal of the Games, nor the goal of doing the pole vault again and I have already done 5m72 again. My bet is already a winner and after that, the cherry on the cake would be to be in Paris at the Stade de France in August. So, there you go, it’s up to me to keep moving forward“.
A whole season and the end of a career will therefore be played out from 1 p.m. this Sunday at the French athletics championships in Angers. Either Lavillenie clears 5m82 and he will win the right to go to the Paris Olympics next August to write a new page in his legend. Either he fails and it will be the end of an era.
If there is one who can succeed in this bet, it is him. Technically, he is the best pole vaulter we have ever seen. And, from the moment he can run, he will do it!
Mondo Duplantis, world record holder and reigning Olympic championAll Star Perche – Clermont-Ferrand – February 2024
Watch the documentary “The Olympic Dream” dedicated to Renaud Lavillenie in replay on france.tv
