Mike RowbottomPhew. For a while there it looked as if Renaud Lavillenie was one of those athletes who would have to settle for being an Olympic, world indoor, double European outdoor and triple European indoor champion.

But we needn't have worried. After his monumental 6.16 metres pole vault in Donetsk which eclipsed Sergey Bubka's 21-year-old world record, the 27-year-old Frenchman has it all - or nearly, as his medal cabinet still lacks a world gold, albeit that he has one silver and two bronzes.

"Fantastic" was the word the watching Bubka chose for Lavillenie's historic vault at the same meeting - his home-town meeting indeed - where he had set his mark of 6.15 in February 1993.

Strictly speaking, however, Bubka's description was inaccurate. Although reaching the heights he set in a 20-year international career which saw him break the world record 35 - yes, 35 - times has been no more than a fantasy for those who have followed him in the event, for Lavillenie, in the space of the last two months, it hardened into a distinct possibility.

An overjoyed Renaud Lavillenie tries to take in his achievement of becoming the new world pole vault record holder ©AFP/Getty Images

Lavillenie cleared 6.04 in Rouen on January 25 - a one centimetre improvement on his previous best of 6.03 set in 2011 - and reached 2.08 in Bydgoszcz on January 31 to become the second highest performer in history.

The Frenchman described in his IAAF diary entry for December 31 how he had prepared for the indoor season with what he described as "one of the best training periods of my career", and had been free of the injury problems which had hindered him last year. So the background was promising.

"Just to give you some indicators," he added, "early this winter I have been jumping with short approach runs: two, four, six and eight strides; and I have broken all my records. For example, I cleared 4.00m with a two stride approach, and 5.20m with a six stride approach.

"I then went to a training camp, in Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean. I took a longer approach and I put on spikes again. I was able to use bigger poles than the ones that I expected to use."

Lavillennie revealed that, as well as using longer poles, he was now using pedals - although the latter was only for recreational cycling, which he has taken up in earnest within the last few months.

"After this great period of training," Lavillenie concluded, "I hope that I will be able to make all my efforts concrete this winter. Last year, my indoor season was excellent but we always want to do better than the previous year, so my challenge will be to win everything and to jump higher and higher."

That said, Lavillenie has still had to take giant strides to elevate himself above a legendary performer whose record has been one of the longest standing in male athletics.

Just to give you the idea - the Frenchman now stands top of a world all-time indoor list in which the next seven best performances, from 6.08 to 6.15, stand to Bubka, who has 11 of the best 15 efforts to his credit. In the outdoor listings, Bubka occupies the first 13 places, with his 6.14, achieved at high altitude in Sestriere in 1994, heading the pile.

ergey Bubka, pictured celebrating his latest mark in 1991, broke the world pole vault record 35 times in an international career from 1981- 2001 ©Getty Images

Albeit that Bubka's tenure of the world record position eventually fell short of the 25-year span in which Jesse Owens's long jump mark stood, from 1935 to 1960, or the mark which is the current longest standing world record in men's athletics, the 74.08m discus throw registered by Jurgen Schult of the German Democratic Republic on June 6, 1986, it was still a huge endeavour for Lavillenie.

Jurgen Schult, the East German discus thrower whose effort of 74.08 in 1986 is the longest standing male world record ©Getty Images

I wish I had been in Donetsk to see him accomplish his feat. The last two times I have seen Lavillenie competing in the flesh, as it were, were two occasions which turned out to be, respectively, bittersweet, and simply bitter as far as he was concerned.

Never has a gold medallist been more wretched than Lavillenie was as he won the European indoor title for a third time in Gothenburg last March.

Lavillenie cleared 6.01 metres,the best height recorded at that point in the year, but at the end of the competition he sank onto the track in despair after what he had been convinced was a successful last-attempt clearance of 6.07m - four centimetres further than his best and closer than any other man had managed to get to Bubka's 1993 world record of 6.15m -was ruled ineligible.

As Lavillenie, distraught, hid his face in his hands, while the photographers and television cameras were drawn towards him despite the fact that the women's 60 metres final was about to start, the bar remained mockingly intact on its supports above him.

A distraught Lavillenie contemplates the 6.07m clearance which got away at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg last year ©Getty Images

No wonder the Frenchman had raved with frustration and thundered a mighty kick of rage into the hoardings before subsiding in disbelief.

He later accepted his victor's bouquet as if it were infested with greenfly, hurling it swiftly over the barriers.

"I am very sad about the rules," he said afterwards.

"Everyone saw that the bar was still up."

Lavillenie was right - but as officials later explained, in clearing the bar he had shifted it further than was admissible.

The International Association of Athletics Federation regulation which operated in this case was Rule 182.2.a, which states that a vault shall be declared ineligible if "the bar does not remain on both pegs because of the action of the athlete".

Cold comfort indeed for Lavillenie.

Five months later there was the further cold comfort of a silver medal at the Moscow World Championships, where the Frenchman - the last active competitor in the event - had to opportunity to complete his athletics "grand slam" of titles with a third and final attempt at 5.96m.

Among those watching intently was his younger brother Valentin, who had remained at his side during the competition despite failing to record a mark in his opening height of 5.50m. Whether this actually helped big brother's concentration remains open to question.

After brushing the bar off with his right thigh, Lavillenie remained on the landing pad, head in hands, for a good few seconds, before setting off with grim determination to find and congratulate Germany's Raphael Holzdeppe, who had already finished but emerged as world champion on countback and was already at the centre of a seething mass of photographers.

Two excruciating moments for Lavillenie. But now his ambitions will know no bounds, and he will now set his sights on winning another world indoor title in Sopot next month before seeking to complete the only gap in his medal collection at the Beijing World Championships next summer.

All clear...after the disappointments of 2013, Renaud Lavillenie puts himself on top of the world in the pole vault ©AFP/Getty Images

Of course there is one other rewarding spin-off for Lavillenie after his stupendous feat in the Ukraine. He will now be able, should he desire, to operate the lucrative method employed by his predecessor as world record holder by edging his mark upwards centimetre by centimetre, world record bonus by world record bonus. Such is the mastery he has now earned.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.