Renaud Lavillenie will aim to become the first athlete to win five gold medals in a row in the same event at next year's European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade.
The French pole vaulter’s agent Rene Auguin has confirmed his presence in the Serbian capital between 3-5 March as he looks to successfully defend the title once again.
It would be some achievement for Lavillenie, 30, who first became European indoor champion in Turin in 2009 before then winning in Paris (2011), Gothenburg (2013) and Prague (2015).
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Only once before in the history of the championships, which started in 1966 as the European Games before changing its name in 1970 to its present title, has an athlete won individual gold five times in a row.
That was East German Karin Balzer who took the sprint hurdles crown between 1967 and 1971, when the competition was staged every year, but in the first three of those it was over 50m hurdles before becoming the 60m hurdles from 1970.
Lavillenie’s progression indoors, where he now holds the world record after his amazing 6.16m in Donetsk in 2014, can be traced through the period of his four European indoor successes.
In Turin, he equalled his then personal best of 5.81m and by Paris, two years later, he triumphed in front of his home fans with a sensational 6.03m, breaking the championship record and along with it, the national record of 6.00m which had been held by Jean Galfione since 1999.
He made it a hat-trick in Gothenburg with 6.01m, with a faultless charge to gold where his only failures came when he attempted 6.07m once his victory had been secured, before in Prague last year, he was rewriting history again – this time winning with a championship record of 6.04m.
Lavillenie will open his winter season in January at a new indoor meeting, which is being held at 2200m altitude in Tignes, in the countdown to Serbia where, as always, he will be the man to beat.