After winning Olympic gold and breaking one of the most iconic world records on the books, the next major milestone on the road to global domination for Renaud Lavillenie is the European Athletics Championships.
The flying French pole vaulter has a special reason for wanting to win his third straight European title in Zurich next month, as he explained after extending his 2014 unbeaten record at the London Anniversary Games last Sunday.
“For me the Europeans are really important because I am on a good winning streak and if I win in Zurich it will be 20 in a row,” he said. “That’s a personal record for me, and it would be a perfect place to do it. The Europeans is a great competition so I’m really excited to be there.”
Lavillenie’s first European title came in Barcelona four years ago. It was also his first gold medal at any outdoor championships and he went on to add a second European crown in Helsinki two years ago before claiming the Olympic title in London later that summer.
He returned to the British capital for the first Anniversary Games last July and stunned the 60,000 fans in the Olympic Stadium with his outdoor personal best of 6.02m, the longest seen anywhere in the world for five years.
Seven months later he stunned the whole sporting world when he cleared 6.16 at the All Stars meeting in Donetsk, stealing Sergey Bubka’s 21-year-old world record from under the great man’s nose in his home country of Ukraine.
It was the culmination of an extraordinary 2014 indoor season in which the 27-year-old vaulted 6m or higher five times and raised the French record three times in three competitions. But he missed the World Indoor Championships in Sopot with a foot injury, and so the Europeans in Zurich will be his first championship contest since he lost to Germany’s Raphael Holzdeppe at the Moscow World Championships last August.
So far this outdoor season, Lavillenie has failed to hit the heights he achieved indoors. His world lead stands at 5.92 from Shanghai in May, but he won the London Anniversary Games with 5.70 and failed three times at 5.83, despite trying with the longer 5.20m pole he used to break the world record in February.
Not that he is worried about failing again on the championships stage. Indeed, he claims to be saving his big vaults for the big competition.
“Since Moscow I had a very good indoor season so I am not worried about that now,” he said. “I am just happy to be jumping there and ready for the competition.”
“I was disappointed with the height today because I was expecting to jump much higher than I did, but I’m pleased to take the win because it’s another one in a row.
“Mostly during this outdoor season I have been using the 5.10 pole, but the 5.20 one is better for jumping really high, so I was hoping it would help. But it can’t happen every time.
“I am just taking my time and waiting for the major competition of the season. For me it was more important to take the win and be able to jump really well in Zurich.
“In training I have been really good. I have made some of my best training jumps every time, so that’s a good indication. But in the competitions we have been fighting with the conditions, the rain and the wind, and that’s not easy when you have to run over 40m with a pole in your hands.
“If you look at the season’s rankings no-one is jumping really high, no-one is really consistent. We just hope conditions are really good in Zurich so we have a chance.”