Remote garden competition featuring Mondo Duplantis, Sam Kendricks and Renaud Lavillenie will be live streamed around the world

Top-class pole vault competition is set to return on Sunday (May 3), with Mondo Duplantis, Sam Kendricks and Renaud Lavillenie preparing to clash in a unique remote garden contest.

With traditional athletics action suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, the trio will each vault from the comfort and safety of their own back gardens and compete via a live video link.

Fans will be able to tune in to watch the battle thanks to a World Athletics live stream, which will be available to watch here on Sunday.

LIVE STREAM: Ultimate Garden Clash – Pole Vault Edition

The ‘Ultimate Garden Clash – Pole Vault Edition’ will see world record-holder Duplantis of Sweden compete at his base in Lafayette, Louisiana, while USA’s two-time world champion Kendricks will vault in his back garden in Oxford, Mississippi, and France’s former world record-holder Lavillenie will jump in his garden in Clermont-Ferrand.

Weather permitting, the competition will be held between 4-5pm UK time.

Traditional competition would see athletes battle to clear the best height, but the lack of officials in this contest would make that tricky.

Therefore, this competition will require the trio to attempt to clear 5.00m as many times as they can within 30 minutes.

“I’m ecstatic to be able to compete again, especially against Sam and Renaud,” said Duplantis.

“Since it’s unknown what other competitions we will all have together, we definitely are going to enjoy this and have a good time with it.

“Also, winning this is crucial because I don’t like losing to them very much.”

Kendricks said: “Because it’s a unique style of competing, I think we will all be learning as we go. No matter how precise and accurate we are, I think the challenge is we don’t know what it will take to win, so it will be hard to gauge our effort. I know that it doesn’t matter what we are doing together. We each want to win.”

Lavillenie added: “This is a superb opportunity to see the best jumpers in a new competition format showing their love for their sport with a competition when most other sports are off.

“Because we are all at home, we have no excuses to miss this international home competition.”

World Athletics said the global governing body is exploring the possibility of holding other ‘Ultimate Garden Clash’ competitions in the coming weeks.

Other non-traditional events currently planned include a virtual shot put competition featuring British champions Scott Lincoln and Sophie McKinna (read more here) and the ‘Impossible Games’ set for Oslo in June (read more here).