Christophe Lemaitre, Renaud Lavillenie and Eloyse Lesueur steal the show: DecaNation in Nice, France
As the 7th edition of the DecaNation competition unfolded in Nice, France, Christophe Lemaitre, Renaud Lavillenie and Eloyse Lesueur stole the show for producing finishes of 10.12 seconds, 5.82m and 6.91m, respectively.
Among all these three French performers, results produced by Lemaitre, the emerging sprinter were enjoyed the most by the crowd. However, the runner, who happens to be the 200m bronze medallist of this year’s World Championships in Athletics in Daegu, was
not that happy with his performance as he could not find more time to train himself for the event.
Confessing the fact that greater time for training could have made the contest more thrilling for the audience, the 21-year-old French sprinter said, “I trained on Thursday, the first time since Daegu. I came back from Asia very tired and I wouldn’t have
run fast anyway. It was a hard race, but fortunately I can rely on my finish! I wasn’t afraid to lose, but I kind of had the obligation to win!”
For Lemaitre, the start of the race was rather troubling as American runner, Justin Gatlin seemed on fire and pulled away a clear margin right from the start. However, with the race still to go for a final 30m, the French unleashed his quick strides and
managed to breast the tape in 10.12 seconds, finishing 0.06 seconds ahead of his American rival, who happens to be a former Olympic and world champion.
Lemaitre, who came to attend the event after taking a break from his holidays, will now go back on vacation to recover and will only come back for an interclub competition in La Roche-sur-Yon on October 9, where from he will go for his training session for
next year’s London Olympics.
Lavillenie, the pole vaulter, whose birthday was also observed on the same day, could not have a better present than success in the DecaNation competition. However, despite producing an impressive 5.82m jump, he might not be able to get rid of the disappointment
for settling third at the Daegu Championships. Nevertheless, the athlete was content with his last performance of the ongoing year.
By the end of his contest, Lavillenie wanted to go for a world leading 5.92m height. However, he simply was not left with energy to perform the task in a desired manner, which he himself admitted by saying, “I lacked the freshness for this height; I lacked
energy and felt empty in my last try.”
Finally, it was Eloyse Lesueur who left the audience stunned with her performance. The young girl, who had been eliminated from qualification in Daegu, though could not produce an up to the mark result, but it was good enough to secure her the Nice event
title.
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