Renaud Lavillenie congratulates Armand Duplantis after his victory in the All Star Perche. – Thierry Zoccolan / AFP
“It’s been two years since I jumped as high”: in the absence of a new world record from the Swedish Armand Duplantis, who failed at 6m19 after having largely crossed 6m01, the good surprise of the All Star Perche came by Renaud Lavillenie, Sunday in Clermont-Ferrand.
Admittedly, the 20-year-old prodigy, who has broken the world record twice in the past 15 days (6.17 am on February 8 in Torun then 6.18 am seven days later in Glasgow), won the Clermont-Ferrand competition by passing a helm at 6m01, with disconcerting ease.
6m19 XXX pic.twitter.com/PZmq0LYa5l
– AllStarPerche (@AllStarPerche) February 23, 2020
Best performance since the “Europe” of 2018
But the Frenchman, his 13-year-old elder, who had on Sunday the double cap of competitor and organizer of the meeting which he created from scratch on his Auvergne lands in 2016, took second place in “his” competition, by first crossing 5m94, a bar he had not crossed since the European Championships in Berlin in 2018.
“I am very satisfied,” said the ex-world record holder after the competition. “I knew that 5m94 would be the maximum, it’s been two years since I jumped as high, and I know that with such a bar, in August, the Olympic medal will not be far. Lavillenie then attempted a 6m01 bar, failing three times. But the Clermontois, if he lacked freshness, was far from being ridiculous at this height. “I felt that I had started with the previous jumps at 5m80 and 5m87,” he said.
?? 5.94m on the first try! Renaud Lavillenie is back!
▶ Follow @AllStarPerche live video: https://t.co/P3jm7jFJ7u pic.twitter.com/OrWKybrvL7
– France tv sport (@francetvsport) February 23, 2020
Six pole vaulters at 5.80m
Duplantis then tried to beat its own brand, established on February 15 in Glasgow, but failed to cross a bar at 6m19. “Make some noise,” he asked some 5,000 spectators before setting off. But he failed twice with a harder pole than in his two previous records, before resuming the same as in his last exploits and failing narrowly, despite the advice of Lavillenie, appreciated: “He shed some light on some details ”.
“I also gave some advice to” Mondo “, but I was especially afraid of taking 30 cm in the face, there it is only 7 cm and frankly, it feels good,” concluded the former holder the world record (6.16m in 2014).
With six pole vaulters at 5.80 m, the competition kept all its promises. The meeting “is only five years old, but is currently the best in the world for pole vaulting,” Lavillenie said. American Sam Kendricks took 3rd place with a jump to 5.87m. The world champion in Doha was unable to cross 6m01, after missing 5m94.
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