In our series on Diamond Race heroes, we take a look at some of the most successful athletes in the history of the IAAF Diamond League. Where better to start than with the man who was won the Diamond Race more times than anyone else?
Brussels. September 11 2015. Renaud Lavillenie falls with arms outstretched, the tattoo of the Olympic rings shining on his forearm. The Frenchman had just cleared 5.95m, the height that would eventually see him take victory in the Diamond Race final.
As Lavillenie leaps to his feet, a look of manic elation breaks across his face. Even after winning this competition five times already, the sixth title seems to mean the world to Lavillenie. No wonder.
2015 had been a difficult year for the pole vault legend. In August, he had failed once again to win gold at the World Championships. After shock defeats in Paris and Lausanne, his Diamond League title had also been in doubt. Lavillenie’s lead of three points ahead of the 2015 final was the shortest he had ever had at the final stage of a Diamond Race campaign.
Champions, though, are resilient. Lavillenie is certainly a champion. An Olympic champion. A three time European champion. An indoor world champion. And, of course, a six time winner and undefeated holder of the men’s pole vault Diamond Trophy.
No other athlete has taken to the Diamond Race like Lavillenie. He is the only athlete to have won the Diamond Trophy in every single year since the competition’s inauguration in 2010.
“I love to win the Diamond Race every year,” he said, back in 2014, “I love the concept because you have to be very consistent all year”.
It is the perfect sporting paradox. At first glance, pole vault is all about a single moment. Yet Lavillenie’s triumphs in the Diamond Race, more than any other title, are illustrative of how he has dominated his discipline so consistently over the last five years. Even at the most difficult times, such as the late summer of 2015, his winning mentality prevails and he shows again and again why he is the very best in the world.
Lavillenie’s rise to stardom is a story inexorably intertwined with the IAAF Diamond League. In 2009, as preparations for the inaugural Diamond League season were underway, Lavillenie topped the outdoor rankings for the first time and beat the French national record with a jump of 6.01m.A year later, he had wrapped up his first Diamond Trophy. The ensuing years saw ever more success in the Diamond League, Olympic gold and his astonishing world record jump of 6.16m in Donetsk in 2014.
The ultimate pole vault champion, Lavillenie is also the ultimate Diamond Race hero.
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