Renaud Lavillenie at the 2014 IAAF Diamond League in Oslo (© Mark Shearman)
The pole vault competition at this year's IAAF Diamond League meeting in Oslo, the famous, ExxonMobil Bislett Games, on 9 June will see a terrific pole vault contest that brings together London 2012 Olympic Games champion and world record holder Renaud Lavillenie and 2015 world champion Shawn Barber, the meeting organisers announced on Tuesday.
Lavillenie has come out in front, if not always won the competition outright, in 10 of their 12 head-to-head contests but the only time Barber beat Lavillenie and also won the competition was, perhaps, the most important of them all at the IAAF World Championships Beijing 2015 last August
During the indoor season, the Canadian went over 6.00m for the first time but Lavillenie has cleared this height or better in no less than 19 competitions.
The 29-year-old Frenchman, who also won the IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016 pole vault title, has been the dominant force in this discipline in the IAAF Diamond League since the series was inaugurated in 2010.
He has won the Diamond Race for the past six years, a feat no other athlete has managed, and has a record 27 victories to his name in Diamond League meetings.
Organisers for the IAAF
2016 IAAF Diamond League calendar
6 May – Doha, QAT
14 May – Shanghai, CHN
22 May – Rabat, MAR
28 May – Eugene, USA
2 Jun – Rome, ITA
5 Jun – Birmingham, GBR
9 Jun – Oslo, NOR
16 Jun – Stockholm, SWE
15 Jul – Monaco, MON
22-23 Jul – London, GBR
25 Aug – Lausanne, SUI
27 Aug – Paris, FRA
1 Sep – Zurich, SUI
9 Sep – Brussels, BEL
