Like a bird. At home, the Swedish Olympic champion Armand Duplantis crossed this Thursday 6.16 m in the pole vault, the best jump in history outdoors (where the conditions are more difficult than indoors due to the wind in particular ), at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm. This is 33 centimeters more than the jump made during the same event by Renaud Lavillenie (5.83 m), fifth in the competition.
The 22-year-old world record holder (6.20m in March in Belgrade indoors) did better than his 6.15m achieved in September 2020 in Rome, just two weeks before the Eugene Worlds (15th in July 24 on the west coast of the United States). The previous record belonged to the illustrious Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, who jumped 6.14m in 1994.
“What a delicious feeling,” he commented in the mixed zone. It’s great to jump on the track where I train, I live 10 minutes away, I kind of wanted to defend my territory. The Swedish public gave me extra motivation. I felt that I had the form to do such a performance. Not necessarily the shape of my life because I feel that I can still improve. I haven’t been perfect. I still have room. »
All he needs is the world title
A performance hailed by Renaud Lavillenie himself: “He made another monstrous leap. We don’t know where he will stop, I’m happy to have had my beautiful period before him, there he is walking on everyone, ”said the former world record holder.
At this level, it is no longer really a surprise to see “Mondo” Duplantis achieve a new performance of this type. He has already broken the world record four times since 2020, gradually raising it from 6.17m to 6.20m last March when he became indoor world champion in Belgrade.
The athlete, who was born and raised in Louisiana with his American father and Swedish mother, has been crushing the pole vault for several years. European champion in 2018 in Berlin, Olympic champion in 2021 in Tokyo, only the title of outdoor world champion is missing from his list. He will of course be the big favorite of the Eugene Worlds, in three weeks.
