Pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie, strapped in the thigh, failed to pass the Olympic minimums on Saturday at Le Bourget, where he stopped after three missed attempts upon entering the competition at 5.60 m, far from the required 5.82 m . The 2012 Olympic champion, aged 37, explained that he was injured during his jump of 5.70 m at the Pierre-Bénite meeting a week ago.
“Even if I don’t have any pain, my brain has been in turmoil all week. I’m missing that little spark that would have allowed me to move the pole correctly,” he said on the tarmac of the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum where the competition took place. “Obviously, what I felt at Pierre-Bénite was a big blow to me because I was coming back well and the minimums were going to be a formality for me in the days to come,” he said. he rocks.
“I’m clearly not going to give up.”
The Clermontois still has two opportunities to achieve the minimums, first at the Toulouse meeting, then at the French Championships in Angers. “I’m clearly not going to give up because it’s not my nature, it’s not when I’m closest to it that I’m going to stop,” assured the former world record holder (6 .16 m in 2014). If he achieves his goals, he will still have to be selected by the French Athletics Federation among the three French pole vaulters entered to participate in his fourth Games.
Only one other pole vaulter, Thibaut Collet, has passed the minimums so far. Baptiste Thiry and Robin Emig, finalists at the recent European Championships in Rome, have until June 30 to succeed in their turn. Before this competition and his injury, Lavillenie had managed to jump 5.72 m in May in Poland during his second competition since his return from injury. Having undergone surgery on his hamstrings, he remained ten months without participating in a competition.