No limits for pole vault star Lavillenie

Risk-taking Frenchman on the sidelines due to injury.

SOPOT: Newly-crowned pole vault world record holder Renaud Lavillenie insisted Sunday he was a risk-taker whose limits knew no bounds.

The 27-year-old Frenchman last month cleared 6.16 metres in Donetsk to break by one centimetre Ukraine legend Sergei Bubka’s world record.

“It was a strange feeling, because it’s not a big difference between jumping 6.16m and 6.01,” said Lavillenie, speaking on the sidelines of the World Indoor Athletics Championships which he is sitting out through injury.

“When I saw the bar staying on stands and that it was not going to fall, something crazy happened in my head. It’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had.”

Lavillenie insisted he did not regret attempting a vault at 6.21m after his new record in Donetsk. He injured his foot in the landing, hence his absence from the world indoor pole vault, won Saturday by Greek Konstadinos Filippidis (5.80m).

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2014.

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