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AUBIERE (FRA, Dec 20-21): Pole Vaulter Renaud Lavillenie scored 5363 in Heptathlon and achieved very good 5.60 in his specialty, the pole vault. The winner by a small margin was Christophe Pechet was with 5375 points.

Does anyone have the results for this meet and what Lavillenie got in the other events?

He did:
60 meter: 7.23 sec
long jump: 6.98 meter
shot put: 9.61 meter
High Jump: 1.89 meter
60 m hurdle: 8.41 sec
Pole Vault: 5.60 meter
1000 meter: 3:06:25

Wow, 7.23 in the 60m? You would think a guy rolling 9.7-9.8mps on the runway would bring a little more speed than that in the 60m! I was thinking he would be in the 6.8-6.9 range? Could be indicative that you don't need blazing top end speed to hit high MPS numbers on the vault runway.....Or he just sucks out of the blocks and stumbled his @ss off the first few strides. Interesting on either side of the coin.

More results for Renaud Lavillenie can be found here, a lot of interesting results.

http://bases.athle.com/asp.net/athletes.aspx?base=bilans&seq=42549

He ran 7.16 sec january 2010, definitively not extremely fast. However his shot put results does not indicate any strength either

Long jump 7.35
110hurdles 14.52
I remembered

Interesting results.

While I don't expect anybody his size (5'9"/5"10 and ~150lbs) to do great in any throwing events. I bet guys like Jeff Hartwig or Okert Britts would do pretty well. Victor Chystiakov would have been an absolute monster.

Long jump, pretty alright but can't really comment without seeing it. It would probably improve to high 7s with technical work but that's just a hunch I have. Not sure how much actual long jumping he would do in training for LJ or for PV.

Long jumping drills for pole vault only really take into account the run and take off. Things that happen in flight and the landing are not such a huge concern aside from safety aspects. The aerial portion of a pole vaulter's LJ would not look fantastic like a true long jumper but as long as the air and landing are safe and consistent progressions can still be measured and are very useful at indicating the effectiveness of the run and take off.

The sprints on the other hand are surprising to me. I did think he would be faster in a pure sprint.

Putting that all together he doesn't seem like an absolute physical phenom that would be jumping 6m+ ... but he is still jumping 6m+. He does some things with his vault that gives him a huge advantage over the other bigger, faster and stronger guys. IMO the most undervalued part of his jump is his take off location. Hopefully this may actually get some more people thinking - everybody always talks about runway speed (especially with Lavillenie) and yes it does make a huge difference and it is very important. But take off location is also one of the most important things in the vault and it needs to be addressed more especially since there are still so many people taking off under.

-Andrew

Thousands of sprinters can hit 10 m/s or faster running.. Only a few can do it with a pole in there hand.

Based off the data I have seen and the typical correlation between speed on track and on the runway this is about where I would think he would be.

We have to remember as a vaulter you only need 9.6 m/s on runway to be considered fast. On the LJ runway this is very very very slow. 10 m/s on the runway in the LJ would equal low 7 meter jump as seen by Renaud. This matches up with the 60 time as well with or without great blocks. I think someone to look at would be Ashton Eaton. Here is a guy who can go 6.60 in the 60... What is his speed on the runway? How efficient is he with a pole in his hand? How willing is he to bring 100% of his speed at the box? My guess is Ashton is only running at 85% velocity to feel safe.

In a pure speed (60m) did 6.77 sec in an electric Time. He start just one foot behind the electric cell.

85%? More like 65%.
Eaton's most recent WR effort:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff0fRL94HIk

That last video is great, but unfortunately they miss his hurdle race (his best event). Here is a recent 60M hurdle race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCWTApHftwQ

You can see his max speed vs. what he brings on the PV runway. Here's another one of just the vault, for comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExdIo3t_Sdk

Renaud is fast enough, definitely uses all his speed on the runway, and he takes off out every time. What I notice about his vault that is superior is his ability to always take off out, and then reach/stretch his hands up as he rips through the chord, maximizing the axis of his swing rotation. His tuck comes after the chord, and so is not as detrimental as it could be. He uses the tuck to get more in line with the pole (shoots his feet back at the runway), so it works out well for him.

Very cool that he wins the Euro championship, breaks his own national record, ties for 6th highest vaulter of all time, and then comes out and does a heptathalon.

PS. How the heck could a little guy like Lavillenie be expected to throw the 16lb shot very far?

Tom

Here's video I shot last year of Eaton jumping 5.26m: http://polevaultpower.com/media/video/eaton526.MP4 Check out the takeoff

rainbowgirl28 wrote:Here's video I shot last year of Eaton jumping 5.26m: http://polevaultpower.com/media/video/eaton526.MP4 Check out the takeoff

It's not perfect but if we can get more people with a free take off like that then we're cooking!

Very nice placement on the take off!

I'm even more impressed that he's a decathlete!
Here is an athlete who can only invest a portion of his training in the pole vault and he has a free take off - now what excuse would a person who does spend all their time on the pole vault have for not having a free take off?

-Andrew