Two jumps. Three golds. One back-flip to celebrate. After winning Olympic gold and breaking one of the most iconic world records on the books, you might think Renaud Lavillenie would regard the 2014 European Athletics Championships as a relatively minor milestone on the road to global domination.
Not likely. Not judging by the flying French pole vaulter’s celebration after he flipped over 5.80m to land his third straight European title in Zurich’s Letzigrund Stadium this afternoon. It was a vault that secured his 20th victory in a row, 20 wins from 20 competitions since he lost to Raphael Holzedeppe at the Moscow 2013 World Championships last August.
It also put him in the record books – again – as only the second vaulter to win three European golds, the first since Wolfgang Nordwig won three in a row for East Germany between 1966 and 1971.
It had been a gamble, to jump 5.65 then sit it out while the rest of the field fell by the wayside. But it paid off handsomely for Lavillenie whose inactivity left him with plenty of energy when the men’s pole vault final turned into a one-man demonstration show for the lively crowd on the far end of the stadium.
With the gold medal in the bag, Lavillenie’s next aim was the championships record of 6.00m set by Russia’s Rodion Gataullin 20 years ago. It wasn’t to be for the world number one, who topped out at 5.90. But the victory was his country’s seventh at these championships and put France back on top of the medal table above Great Britain.
“It means a lot to me to win three times in a row, and with only two jumps; it was a tough thing,” he said. “It was so hard to get this one.
“I was very emotional on the podium. I was surprised by myself. This was very strong on me.”
With Holzedeppe missing through injury, Lavillenie’s most likely rival today was thought to be Konstadinos Filippidis, the Greek vaulter who took the World indoor crown in Sopot this year. But Filippidis bowed out at 5.60 to finish seventh while the 2011 world champion Pawel Wojciechowski of Poland took silver on countback from joint bronze medallists Jan Kudlicka of the Czech Republic and Lavillenie’s teammate Kevin Menaldo, all three clearing 5.70.
Lavillenie is already the only French winner of this title, but this was the first time France had got two on the podium. It is certainly a special championships for the 27-year-old whose first major outdoor title came in Barcelona four years ago, and he went on to add a second European crown in Helsinki in June 2012 before claiming the Olympic title in London two months later.
He returned to the British capital for the first Anniversary Games last July and stunned the 60,000 fans in the Olympic Stadium with his outdoor personal best of 6.02m, the highest seen anywhere in the world for five years.
Seven months later he stunned the whole sporting world when he cleared 6.16 in Donetsk, stealing Sergey Bubka’s 21-year-old world record from under the great man’s nose in his home country of Ukraine.
It was the culmination of an extraordinary 2014 indoor season in which he vaulted 6.00m or higher five times and raised the French record three times in three competitions. But he missed the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot with a foot injury, and so these Zurich Europeans were his first championship contest since the Moscow defeat.
Not that Lavillenie was worried about failing again on the championships stage. Indeed, he claimed to be saving his big vaults for the big competition. All it will take is the right conditions, he has been saying after each Diamond League victory.
And this afternoon, after days of chill winds and downporing rain, the Letzigrund was bathed in warm Saturday afternoon sunshine. Perfect, it turned out for watching the pole vault, which is what Lavillenie did for more than an hour.
The competition was some 70 minutes old by the time he took off his tracksuit top and readied himself for a first attempt. He popped over 5.65 to take the lead before passing at 5.70 and 5.75. By the time he came back in at 5.80 he was lying fourth, out of the medals.
But the rest of the field had perished by then and 5.80 is a height he’d cleared 74 times in his career. The 75th looked as routine as they come.
Then came 5.90, easily done after one slight brush with the bar. The championships record was harder, however. On the first two he took the bar off with his feet. He was closer on the third, but not close enough.
The tears on the podium were not from disappointment, though, they were of joy and relief.
“I thought about everything that has happened this year,” he said. “Five months ago I could barely walk after my world record. It was so hard to get this one.
“This is my third European title and I had to be here, I had to be present.
“Winning the gold medal is never anything normal. Pole vault has always also got to do with chance.”
Now Lavillenie will turn his thoughts to the one gold medal missing from his collection – the outdoor World Championships.
“I want a gold medal in the World Championships in 2015 and also another gold medal at the 2016 Olympics,” he said. “I want to have a big collection of gold medals.
“And a new world record? Well, of course. But let me have time to enjoy this one first.”
