One week after clearing 5.61m, France’s Renaud Lavillenie scaled 5.70m in his backyard at home in Perignat-les-Sarlieve over the Easter weekend.
Lavillenie finds himself in a more fortuitous position than the majority of athletes during lockdown. The specially built runway in his garden might be shorter in length than he is usually accustomed to but the slightly downhill gradient means Lavillenie is able to generate a similar speed on the approach.
This was the third video Lavillenie has posted on himself in action in the pole vault on social media. He has gradually improved from 5.50m to 5.70m and with lockdown extended in France for another month, Lavillenie has hinted he might try and surpass his ‘meeting’ record of 5.85m in the not too distant future.
“We will see in a few weeks if the record is beaten or not!” he said on social media. Lavillenie finished the indoor season ranked third on the 2020 world indoor list with a 5.94m clearance, behind world champion Sam Kendricks (6.01m) and European champion and world record-holder Armand Duplantis (6.18m).
European indoor heptathlon champion Jorge Urena from Spain was also active on social media over the weekend, showcasing his concept of an indoor decathlon, or a #DeCasaThlon, on his Instagram account. The ten event challenge was held entirely within the confines of his home and included both a standing long jump and high jump while other technical events were replaced by circuit exercises and repetitions with weights.
The concept was picked up on by the Spanish Athletics Federation who widely promoted the activity on their social media platforms and even devised a scoring table to turn the challenge into an unofficial nationwide competition. The response was sizeable with almost 200 athletes across the country following in Urena's lead and completing the #DeCasaThlon
The competition calendar this spring has been decimated by the spread of COVID-19 but multiple Austrian champion Andreas Vojta raced against himself and the clock over the weekend. He set an unofficial 10km PB of 28:28 in Vienna's Hauptallee, the scene of Eliud Kipchoge's sub-two hour marathon last October.