It is in Rouen, this Saturday, that a new stage of the Perche Elite Tour will take place. The duel announced between Duplantis and Lavillenie is already shaping up to be one of the meetings of the season.
Almost a year ago to the day, at the Perche Elite Tour de Rouen, in the Kindarena hall, Renaud Lavillenie was having a very complicated evening. The Frenchman, then world record holder in the discipline, will not be able to enter his competition with three consecutive failures at 5.64 meters. At the same time, a little further in Europe, in Poland more precisely, Armand Duplantis He will erase a bar at 6.17 meters to win the world record for the discipline, which until now belonged to Renaud Lavillenie.
In this year 2021, it is a whole different competition which arises for the two men in form of the pole vault. For several days now, Renaud Lavillenie and Armand Duplantis play to trade the best world performances of the season. It was first in Karlsruhe that the French started the game with a mark of 5.95 meters a few days ago.
A promising start to the season
For his return to competition in this new year, the Swede Armand Duplantis The Frenchman quickly responded by clearing a bar at 6.01 meters last weekend in Düsseldorf, before failing on his world record attempt (6.19 meters). But a few moments later, at La Perche en or in Tourcoing, it was the turn of Renaud Lavillenie to take back control of this season with a bar at 6.02 meters (before also failing on his attempt at a world record at 6.20 meters)!
6m02 ????????
Nothing to add ????????
Thank you @Why_en_or???? air6team ???? @PUMA PUMARunning @BRMChrono @Michelin ???? pic.twitter.com/E4HrvRzlGt
– Renaud LAVILLENIE (@airlavillenie) January 31, 2021
It is in Rouen that the two fit men of the moment meet to compete this time in the same competition. A first dress rehearsal in a season which will be marked by a duel, we hope, of the most undecided in Tokyo in a few months for the Olympic Games. But before that, the meeting in Normandy this Saturday should allow one of the two friends to gain a first psychological advantage over his competitor.
A trio to mark the spirits
Lavillenie and Duplantis will still have to beware of a regular! The American Sam Kendricks has also ticked the Rouen box in his diary, like last year when he won under the eyes of Renaud Lavillenie with a bar more than 6 meters (6.01 m).
It is therefore a trio of favorites which should reserve us an undecided competition, with the possibility of seeing the best performance of the season fall once again, and why not even more… Unfortunately, it is a new meeting at huis closed which awaits the pole vaulters, in a room of the Kinderena of Rouen which has as a habit to make a lot of noise and to push the pole vaulters always a little higher.
The start list of international competitions is up to date! ????????
See you Saturday on Eurosport 2 or on the France 3 Normandie website ???? pic.twitter.com/HfgHyy19zd– Why Elite Rouen (@PercheEliteTour) February 2, 2021
Bastien Pitte
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