“Mentally I’m not ready to hang up,” warned Wednesday the 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Renaud Lavillenie, competing Thursday at the Oslo meeting for his European comeback, after a long break due to injury. “I am progressing well physically, which is my priority. I feel that my body is strengthening in an interesting way, even if I’m still far from my summer standards,” Lavillenie told AFP and the daily L’Equipe.
For the first time in his career, the former pole vault world record holder (6.16m in 2014) had to give up the indoor season this winter, hit in the hamstrings, to “totally repair” his body. In Oslo, facing Sweden’s Armand Duplantis in particular, Lavillenie hopes to validate the progress made during an internship in Chula Vista (California) in May, which ended with a jump to 5.46 m at the Los Angeles meeting on May 27.
“In pole vault I still have technical flaws. That’s why this competition (Oslo) is important, to find this transition, this trigger that I have trouble triggering in training. At first, the performances will not be at the very high level. You have to accept the time for it to be built.”
“Mentally I’m not ready to hang up. I have a longer and more demanding job than usual, but I always do what I love, so the constraints are less, “said the 36-year-old athlete, who hopes to shine at the Budapest Worlds (19- August 27) before the Paris Olympics in 2024. “I have time ahead of me. Thanks to my performances last year, I am in a good position to go to Budapest. I don’t need to rush. I will be ready”, assured the one who had taken fifth place in the pole vault competition at the last World Championships last year in Eugene (Oregon, United States).
