Bend like a pole, but do not break. Star of French athletics, Renaud Lavillenie, injured, must forfeit the World Championships in Budapest (August 19-27), but still hopes, at 36, to “recharge the batteries” before the Paris Olympics in 2024. ” The challenge of wanting to participate in the world championships despite months off will unfortunately not be successful. My body does not allow me to jump in Budapest in good conditions with the return of pain in my hamstring tendon and I So make the choice to forfeit to my greatest regret”, writes Renaud Lavillenie, this Monday, August 7, on his social networks.
“Preparing for 2024”
The blow is tough for the 2012 Olympic champion, a beast of competition who will therefore have experienced a dark year in 2023. After having skipped the indoor season for the first time in his career to already heal his hamstrings, Lavillenie will have had a laborious summer with the best jump of 5.61 m in seven competitions. He had not managed to cross a single bar on July 30 at the French Championships in Albi, where Thibaut Collet had been crowned. At 36 (37 in September), more or less serious injuries have been accumulating for several years for the former world record holder (6.16 m in 2014), who still hopes to shine at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
“I will take the time to recharge the physical and mental batteries in order to prepare for 2024 and its deadlines in the best conditions,” he promises. Although far from his past glory, the pole vaulter can rely on his experience at the Worlds in Eugene (Oregon, United States) in July 2022 where, not expected after an average season, he had released his best competition to take 5th place, and had passed close to the podium. Already in the winter of 2021, he had come back from afar to pass the legendary 6-meter bar several times. But Renaud Lavillenie will miss the major international summer athletics competition for the first time since the 2008 Beijing Games.
“Mentally, I’m not ready to hang up”
In the meantime, he will have accumulated 18 international medals, including two at the Olympic Games (winner in 2012 in London, silver in 2016 in Rio) and five at the Outdoor Worlds (silver in 2013, bronze in 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2017), the last in 2018 in bronze at the Berlin Euro. He has since remained on several failures (8th at the Olympic Games in 2021, 7th at the Euro in 2022). “Mentally, I’m not ready to hang up,” warned this enthusiast in June, who must now follow from afar the exploits of Swede Armand Duplantis, who hovers above the competition.
“I have a longer and more demanding job than usual, but I still do what I love, so the constraints are less,” he added. The blow is also hard for a young French team in need of leaders, who must already leave at home the hurdler Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and his 12 international medals. In the men’s pole vault, the Blues have so far selected Thibaut Collet and Baptiste Thiery.