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Sotteville-lès-Rouen (AFP)
“The countdown is on”: Renaud Lavillenie, one of the best medal chances of French athletics at the Olympic Games (23 July-8 August), suffered Sunday of a sprained left ankle at most bad time, three weeks before pole vault qualifying in Tokyo.
The 2012 Olympic champion was playing in Sotteville-Lès-Rouen his last meeting before leaving for Japan. He was injured during the warm-up, just before the start of the competition, by falling to the side of the landing mat. The examinations carried out in the wake revealed a sprain, according to his supervision.
Lavillenie will now have two or three days of rest before starting the medical protocol to get back on his feet. The clock is ticking, because the pole vault events at the Olympic Games begin on July 31 for the men.
“Clearly not the ideal scenario for my last competition before the Olympics,” Lavillenie wrote on Twitter. “I leave the clinic with a + encouraging + verdict: no fracture, a big sprain. The countdown has started.”
If the participation of the former world record holder (34 years) in the Olympics “is not called into question”, according to his management, this injury is nevertheless a big blow for the French who aims to obtain in Tokyo a third Olympic medal after gold in 2012 in London and silver in 2016 in Rio.
All the more so as it had finally returned this year to heights more worthy of its standing after several seasons wasted by physical problems.
– Gloomy context for the Blues –
The Clermontois had thus returned this winter with bars over 6 m (6.06 m, February 27 indoors) for the first time since March 2016 before being stopped in his tracks by a calf injury and declaring package for the European Indoor Championships in Torun.
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After a six-week break, he got off to a good start to the summer season since he is currently the 2nd best performer of the year (5.92m) behind the untouchable Swede Armand Duplantis (6.10m), holder of the world record (6.18 m) and favorite of the Games.
“Renaud, he has nothing farted, we are three weeks before the qualifications of the Games, there is no problem, he will be at 200%”, however assured AFP Valentin Lavillenie, the brother of Renaud, also in contention at the Sotteville-Lès-Rouen meeting.
“We always say not to fall back on the mat, it can hurt the ankle, but we all do it. But it’s nothing too serious, I found him + not too dead +. I have no worries about it, it’s just a little sore, “added Valentin.
This injury does not help the affairs of the France team either. Five years after the six podiums brought back from Tokyo, the French athletics approach the Tokyo Olympics in full doubt with headliners recently affected by physical problems (Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, Quentin Bigot) or short of form (Jimmy Vicaut, Pierre-Ambroise Bosse).
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In this gloomy context, Lavillenie was, before his sprain, one of the few sure values of the Blues with Kevin Mayer (decathlon), Yohann Diniz (walking), Alexandra Tavernier (hammer) or Wilhem Belocian (110 m hurdles).
© 2021 AFP
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