Renaud Lavillenie

Lavillenie may have been a bit too inexperienced to make noise in time for Beijing four years ago, but he became a fixture on the pole vault scene shortly thereafter. He failed to reach the final at the 2008 World Indoor Championships, but turned it around a year later to win gold in the European Indoors. He won bronze at the worlds that same year, then gold at the 2010 Euros. Lavillenie repeated those results in 2011, then grabbed a first-place finish at the 2012 World Indoors shortly after recovering from surgery on the left hand he broke in a snapped pole accident. Lavillenie isn't just a threat to become the first French pole vaulter to win gold since Jean Galfione in 1996, but he also has a shot to break Olympic records. He holds the French mark for the highest indoor clearance at 6.03 meters, which is the third-highest of all-time.