Lavillenie defends Euro pole vault title

Helsinki: Renaud Lavillenie fired out a broadside at Olympic pole vault contenders by defending his European title yesterday with a soaring best of 5.97 meters, a height that cemented his world No. 1 ranking.
Lavillenie entered the competition at 5.60m - with seven of the 12-strong field already out, needing two efforts to pass that before opting out until 5.77m, which he sailed over.
The Frenchman vaulted 5.82 at the third time of asking in a duel of gamemanship with German rival Bjorn Otto, who passed at 5.87, which Lavillenie cleared in his first effort.
Both vaulters were then successful at 5.92m, Lavillenie upping the ante when he sailed over a world lead of 5.97m in brilliant sunshine and still conditions at the Olympic Stadium. Otto passed but failed his three efforts at 6.02m, as did Lavillenie.
“It’s one of the best competitions of my career,” said Lavillenie. “It’s been the hardest! I was expecting a battle and I knew that I’d be up against it with the Germans.”
The Clermont native added that skeptics who doubted his entry into the European champs so close before the Olympics had been answered.
“There cannot be a better preparation for the Games than a competition like that,” he said.
There was no gold-medal showing for Lavillenie’s teammate Christophe Lemaitre, the winner of the 100m here and seen as one of the biggest hopes in disrupting the US and Jamaican dominance in sprinting come the London Olympics.
Lemaitre ran the bend as the second leg but could only watch on as the Dutch quartet of Brian Mariano, Churandy Martina, Giovanni Codrington and Patrick van Luijk won the men’s 4x100m relay in a new national record of 38.34sec.