Lavillenie Breaks Meeting Record in Reno

Published by IAAF on January 17, 2015

In just his second competition of the year, world athlete of the year Renaud Lavillenie scaled a world-leading height of 5.92m to break the meeting record at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno on Friday night (16).

The Olympic champion, who had opened his season last week in Aubiere with 5.80m, began his series in Reno with first-time clearances at 5.65m and 5.80m. He surprisingly lost his lead at the next height, though, as USA’s World University Games champion Sam Kendricks went over 5.86m at the first time of asking, adding five centimetres to his outright PB.

But Lavillenie kept his cool. He skipped right to the next height of 5.92m and needed just one attempt to clear it, breaking Jeff Hartwig’s meeting record of 5.91m set 16 years ago.

Kendricks also attempted that height, but was unsuccessful. Lavillenie then had the bar raised to 6.00m, but ended with three failures. Britain’s Steve Lewis was third with 5.65m.

“So happy, tonight was a really good competition,” Lavillenie said on his Instagram account. “Sounds good for the winter season.”