Lavillenie and Duplantis tie at the Ultimate Garden Clash

Posted by: Watch Athletics

Renaud Lavillenie and Armand Duplantis tied at the first edition of the Ultimate Garden Clash - Pole Vault edition on Sunday, March 3. 

Three of the currently best pole vaulters, Sweden's world indoor record-holder Armand Duplantis, France's 2012 Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie and USA's reigning World champion Sam Kendricks, went head-to-head in a competition in their back yards.

It was was a competition to see who could clear the most times 5.00m height within a 30-minute span.

Armand Duplantis and Renaud Lavillenie cleared five metres 36 times, while Sam Kendricks managed 26 successful attempts. 

Duplantis was the leader for most of the contest, but in the very end, Lavillenie managed to be the first to clear the 5.00m for the 36th time.

“I’m done, I don’t want to take any risks,” said Lavillenie. “I’ll share the gold with Mondo.

“I was really missing the feeling I get competing. It’s crazy but even doing this in my garden, I get the same feeling I’d get at a major championships. It was very exciting and I’m very happy to be a part of it. I'm not going to do it every week, but I'm happy to do it once a year.”

“If the bar had been at 5.40m, maybe it would have been a different story,” said Kendricks, the only vaulter who didn’t record any failures. “Preparing for this was honestly my best training of the whole spring.”

“It was really fun being out there competing against those guys,” said Duplantis. “I had really missed competing. I didn’t think it was going to end in a tie, but that’s sports!”

Thousands of athletics fans watch the event live on World Athletics social media.

You can watch the whole competition here.

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