Renaud Lavillenie continues to defy time and gravity at the Tokyo World Championships

Three years after his last major competition and a few days before his ^39th birthday, Renaud Lavillenie is back in the pole vault elite. After missing the 2023 edition, the former world record holder in the discipline is competing in his eighth world championships on Saturday, September 13. In Tokyo, he hopes to get through the pole vault qualifications, which only proved fatal to him once, in 2019, in Doha. "Looking at my season, where I cleared 5.80 m six times [including 5.82 m three times] , I think that getting back to a world final is within my reach, it's the number 1 objective," he assured Le Monde , two weeks before his debut.

In his heyday, the Clermont native never won this competition, so much so that there was talk of the World Championship curse. A relative misfortune, since he reached the podium five times, accumulating four bronze medals and one silver. During his last appearance at this level, in Eugene (Oregon) in 2022, he took fifth place, his last "good result" , he believes.

Lucid, Renaud Lavillenie knows that he has "less margin than during his prime years" . In Japan, if the opportunity arises, he will not deprive himself of seizing "the opportunity for a sixth world medal" , but will also be “very happy [if he is] fourth or fifth” . Especially since the first two places already seem to be promised to the unbeatable Armand Duplantis – thirteen world records , series in progress – and to the rising star, the Greek Emmanouil Karalis, who jumped 6.08 m this year.

You have 73.05% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.