Paris (AFP)
French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie made a 6.02-meter jump on Sunday at the Tourcoing meeting, passing the six-meter bar in competition for the first time since March 2016.
The 2012 Olympic champion in London and Olympic runner-up in Rio in 2016 cleared 6.02 meters on his first attempt at Tourcoing, with a small margin on the bar, before failing once at 6.20 meters, this which would have been the world record.
With 6.02 meters, Lavillenie resumed the best world performance of the year from Sweden's Armand Duplantis, world record holder at 6.18 m, and who had passed 6.01 m, a little earlier on Sunday in Düsseldorf ( Germany).
The two pole vaulter, who have exchanged the best world performances in recent days (Lavillenie had spent 5.95 m in Karlsruhe on Friday), will meet again next Saturday at the meeting in Rouen and then in Liévin three days later.
For the French pole vaulter, this is the first time he has crossed the six-meter mark since his indoor world title in Portland on March 17, 2016, with a performance of 6.02 m.
This is the twentieth competition completed by Lavillenie at 6 meters and more.
The two men are the last two world record holders in the discipline.
The French had dethroned the Ukrainian Sergei Bubka with a jump to 6.16 m in February 2014. Duplantis then erased Lavillenie's mark by passing 6.17 m at the start of 2020 then 6.18 m a week later.
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