Renaud Lavillenie is no longer a record holder in the world of pole vaulting ... You only had to watch Armand Duplantis progress and try his luck bluntly from the age of 20 to understand that it was only a matter of weeks, even days . Fate wanted the brilliant Swedish to fly above 6.17 m on Saturday, when Renaud Lavillenie was about to enter his competition in Rouen. The Frenchman learned the news on his cell phone. "I said to myself, that's it," smiled the London Olympic champion. The wave surged.
Rarely does a foreign athlete have as much passion for the French. Because the pole record fascinates (before Lavillenie, which lasted six years, Bubka held the record for twenty years), because Armand Duplantis, a distant descendant of French people who moved to Louisiana, has a French side. The origin of his first name? "No idea, especially since I've always been called Mondo," he laughs. Apart from "hello" and "chicken", he does not know much about our language, as he told us during one of his stays in Auvergne, at ... Lavillenie.
The Frenchman welcomed the Swede in "his garden"
The world pole is currently full of talents, but we quickly became attached to this blond kid, relaxed, friendly and polite, whose parents are rarely far away. A few years ago, Renaud Lavillenie took him under his wing. "Because he has something more than the others, because also I saw him grow," sums up the Frenchman. Thirteen years separate them and in his room in the United States, Mondo has long kept posters of Renaud on the walls of his room.
Until last year, the Swede - his mother Hélèna is a former Swedish heptathlete, his father Greg an ex-American pole vaulter - was a student. When spring came, he set up his base camp in Europe with his parents and his sister, and regularly made a stop by Clermont-Ferrand. Iris, Renaud's little girl, has adopted Mondo, who comes to take advantage of the long pole that Lavillenie has installed in his garden. "Mondo, I sincerely appreciate it and not for the cameras," Renaud insists. I welcomed him home and will continue. We have great moments together and it will continue. "
The handover is smooth, even if Duplantis, crowned European champion in 2018 at only 18 years old and now 100% athlete, accelerates the pace with a disconcerting relaxation. In a fortnight, he will participate in the All Star Perche by Quartus organized by Lavillenie in Clermont-Ferrand. "It will be a beautiful spectacle, we will be several with him to try to take it even higher", concludes the French.
VIDEO. Renaud Lavillenie dethroned by Armand Duplantis