It’s difficult to be the organizer of a meeting and its main headliner at the same time. Renaud Lavillenie missed (sportingly) this Saturday the All Star Perche which he organizes every year at his home in Clermont-Ferrand. The Olympic champion from London, Olympic vice-champion in Rio, did not rise high in Auvergne.
Very moved, Lavillenie started the competition at 5.51 m, failing the first time on the bar. Disturbed by a complicated winter and ankle pain since the Tokyo Olympics, the Auvergne lacked speed but passed above this height on his second try. Reassuring but not enough.
“I felt like I could do better”
Renaud Lavillenie then raised the bar 20 cm higher, to 5.71 m. And that didn’t happen. The former world record holder 8 years ago almost to the day (6.16 m) blocked his first attempt by falling on the bar. Rebelote on the second try with the same failure in carbon copy. And ten der on the third try that Lavillenie missed again, in the same way. Frustrating.
“It’s a lot of frustration indeed,” admits the champion at the microphone of L’Equipe. When you fail, you never know what you are worth. I struggled a lot with my warm-up, I lost a lot of juice without being able to let it go. I felt like I was jumping with the handbrake. I lost a lot of bearings, of juice. It’s frustrating because I felt like I could do better. I thought it would have clicked. I was really happy to be able to come back there for a great event and a great organization. I would have liked to give a little more. This only increases the motivation to come back even stronger next year and move to be even better. »
The Dutchman Menno Vloon, with a jump of 5.87 m, and the Russian Anzhelika Sidorova, who jumped 4.87 m, won this All Star Pole. After securing their victory, Vloon, who passed 5.87 m on the last attempt, and Sidorova asked to pass a bar, at 6 meters and 5 meters respectively, without success.
