Former Olympic champion and world record holder Renaud Lavillenie misses out on Paris qualification

(Patria) - Former Olympic champion and world record holder in pole vault, Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie (37) failed to qualify for the Olympic Games which begin in Paris in less than a month.

Lavillenie needed to clear 5.82 meters at the French Championships in Angers to meet the Olympic standard.

However, after clearing 5.60, the 37-year-old Frenchman failed three times at 5.72.

Lavillenie is the Olympic champion from London 2012 with a jump of 5.97 meters, while four years later in Rio de Janeiro he was second with 5.98 m.

He also won three gold medals at the World Indoor Championships, was a three-time European outdoor champion, and three-time indoor champion.

At the outdoor World Championships, he also won one silver and four bronze medals.

With a jump of 6.16 meters, he was the world record holder for over six years.

Lavillenie set the world record on February 15, 2014, at the annual Pole Vault Stars competition in the hometown of Sergey Bubka - Ukrainian Donetsk.

The Frenchman cleared the bar on his first attempt at 6.16 m, which was a new absolute world record, surpassing Bubka's 6.14 m outdoors and 6.15 m indoors, which some considered impossible to beat.

His record was surpassed by Swede Armand Duplantis, who cleared 6.17 in February 2020. Duplantis' current world record is 6.24 m.