Paris (AFP)
The 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Renaud Lavillenie resumes competition on Friday in Pierre-Bénite (Rhône) but above all intends to save himself for next year, while his summer season should last less than a month.
Headliner of the Trophy Flight, the athletics meeting of Pierre-Bénite, Renaud Lavillenie is back, recovering from a broken left thumb that occurred at the end of June by breaking a pole on the saltire in his garden, which had required an operation on July 2.
"It's complicated, I'm not in great shape, I don't tell myself that I'm going to blow everything this weekend. The resumption of the pole has tired me a little, he explains to AFP. I train to maintain myself especially, not to seek the great form. The most important is that physically I have no problem. "
"I have nothing to prove, I don't have to train like crazy to break a record, he adds. This season I hope to reach 5.80 or 5.90 m, but I don't put any pressure on me with that. I need to save some energy for next year. "
- "The pleasure of competitions" -
At the heart of a season truncated by the Covid-19 pandemic (OJ postponed for one year, Euro canceled), the former world record holder (6.16 m) intends to settle for a "mini-summer" a month at most.
True to his reputation as a bulimic jumper, he still had to compete against the best in the world (Armand Duplantis and Sam Kendricks) on September 2 in Lausanne, then line up in Chrozow (Poland, on the 6th), in Ostrava (Czech Republic the 8th), at the French Championships (in Albi on the 12th), in Rome on the 17th and perhaps at a last meeting.
"There I want to feel the pleasure of the competitions and to find the other pole vaulters. Then I am impatient to turn the page, to cut a good blow on vacation and to start again on a preparation with time in front of me", which should lead him to its big goal, the Tokyo Games (July 23 - August 8, 2021).
After a frustrating 2019, with an elimination from the qualifiers for the Doha Worlds in October, the double Olympic medalist had regained his sensations by passing 5.94 m in February indoors in Clermont, a height he had not reached since August 2018, when the Swede Armand Duplantis had just dispossessed him of his world record by crossing 6.17 then 6.18 m.
At Pierre-Bénite (from 5:00 p.m.), he will jump with his brother Valentin Lavillenie and the hopeful Thibaut Collet, while the decathlete Kevin Mayer, for a time announced, is no longer engaged.
The other highlight of the meeting is expected in the triple jump with the presence of the world bronze medalist and best performer of the season (17.43 m), the Burkinabé Hugues-Fabrice Zango.
© 2020 AFP