2024 European Championships: Mayer, Paris in sight after pole vault scare

Kevin Mayer doit assurer au javelot et lors du 1 500 m pour se qualifier pour les JO. MAXPPP – STADION-ACTU

Le destin olympique de Mayer a failli basculer au saut à la perche, quand il s’est retrouvé au bord du zéro après deux premiers échecs à 5 m.

Fear in the pole vault: Kevin Mayer, in search of the Olympic minimums at the European Athletics Championships, three weeks from the deadline, narrowly remained in the race to qualify for the decathlon of the Paris Games, Tuesday in Rome.

Mayer's Olympic destiny almost changed in the pole vault, often a trap event, when he found himself on the verge of zero after two first failures at his first bar of the competition, at 5 meters.

🏃 #Roma2024 | Kevin Mayer très ému après son concours de perche : "Ce saut réussi m'assure les Jeux. C'est un soulagement. Ne pas pouvoir sortir de chez moi sans qu'on me demande si je suis qualifié, c'est une pression que je n'arrive pas à gérer. On va se faire plaiz à Paris !" pic.twitter.com/mkeini1jYb

— francetvsport (@francetvsport) June 11, 2024

A third and the minimums flew away, and his chances of pinning a bib at the Stade de France at the beginning of August were almost reduced to nothing. The double world champion (2017 and 2022) and double Olympic silver medalist (2016 and 2021) stayed in the competition on his last chance, before convincingly climbing to 5 ,30 m.

This earned his entourage, installed in the stands, Alexandre Bonacorsi, his coach, and Romain Barras, ex-decathlete who became director of high performance for the French team, a hell of a "Kékmotion", as Mayer has the secret.

His performance on the pole vault, the best in the field, puts him back on track for the Olympic minimums set at 8 460 points, his N.1 objective in the European competition, after an early morning winded.

After eight of ten events in the Roman decathlon which he considers to be his "last chance" qualifying for the 2024 Olympics, Mayer totals 7 011 points and is in provisional fifth place.

Podium for Gletty ?

Back on the blue track of the Olympic stadium Tuesday morning, Mayer launched the second half of his decathlon in slow motion over 110 m hurdles, in 14 sec 29 (zero wind), very far from its standards in the specialty. He then threw the disc at 48.53 m.

Only the German Niklas Kaul, reigning European champion, beat him in this exercise. Mayer concluded the first day of the decathlon on Monday evening exactly halfway to the Olympic minimums, with 4 230 points.

The decathlon continues with the javelin and ends with the 1500 m on Tuesday evening. A turbulent start to the second day for Makenson Gletty: he who did not spring from the starting blocks, thinking that a false start would be signaled, initially ran his 110 ;m hurdles in only 15 sec 30, but, authorized to resort around thirty minutes later, he signed his personal best, in 13 sec 88.

The 25-year-old Frenchman then temporarily took the lead in the decathlon, before being dislodged after the discus, where he could not do better than 43, 54 m. On the pole vault, he is still in the race at 5 m. Mayer has not completed ten events since July 2022 in Eugene (United States), when he won his second world title.