Lavillenie improved his outdoor personal best to 5.81 m in May 2009, beating veteran French pole vaulter Romain Mesnil in Forbach. Two weeks later, he improved his outdoor personal best to 5.96 m at a meeting in Aubière, setting a world-leading outdoor mark. He achieved another world-leading outdoor mark with a winning jump of 6.01 m on 21 June 2009 at the 2009 European Team Championships in Leiria, Portugal. That 6.01-metre mark broke Jean Galfione's ten-year-old French national outdoor record of 5.98 m set in Amiens on 23 July 1999 and would remain as the French national outdoor record until Lavillenie beat it by 1 cm in July 2013. At the 2009 World Championships, Lavillenie vaulted 5.80 m in the pole vault final to win the bronze medal (his first medal in the Olympic Games, World Championships or World Indoor Championships) behind Steven Hooker and Romain Mesnil. He also took part in the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Final but failed to record a mark and finished last.