“IT DOESN’T FEEL REAL” is how Mondo Duplantis describes the feeling of soaring over a World Record.
Then he lands, and bedlam ensues. “That’s just overflow with emotions and that’s just freaking out,” he explains.
“I guess I’ve been fortunate enough to do it several times now, but every time the feeling is kind of the same. I think [Paris] was probably an even more extreme version of the feeling too.”
That evening, the then-24-year-old was once again the final competitor in the stadium. He had won the gold with his first-try clearance at 19-8¼ (6.00) and then set an Olympic Record at 20-¼ (6.10). Afterwards he faced off with a bar no one had ever topped before, 20-6 (6.25).
Twice he missed, his knees colliding with the bar.
As he composed himself for his final effort, he says he had no problem tuning out the hoopla that came with the awards ceremony for the men’s 100 final. “If I’m being completely honest, I probably wasn’t thinking about it all that much. It’s probably thinking about my jump and just figuring out a way how I can get over this bar.
“The timing was kind of cool, I guess… I think it was… I can barely even remember.”
He spoke to his dad before the final attempt. “[We were] just trying to get the numbers right and just trying to figure out the jump, because I knew that I pretty much had to hit it close to perfect. I at least needed to be in the right spot at takeoff to be able to use the pole and jump the World Record. You have to be pretty much perfect and the rhythm on the run has to be right there.
“And so on the last one, we just tried to get all the details right. I moved the standards to 62. By the way. I haven’t seen the jump, but it would be funny if I wouldn’t have made it at 60, because we agreed on the depth of the standards to go to 60, and then I just made a last-second cut call to move it 2 more centimeters, which probably didn’t make a difference, but it just felt right in the moment.
“I usually like to try to go with my gut. And I know that he definitely supports that too. So, [I was] just trying to honestly try to be as free as I possibly could. And I think that that’s what they both wanted me to. And I actually got great advice from my mom also after the first attempt. She can always sneak in there and give sneaky great advice, especially when it comes to the run part.
“And so I was just trying to stay tall, but still keep all the momentum going forward. And I guess, like she said, try to really find the run there on the last jump. And then I hit it really good.”
Duplantis could have stopped his season right there and probably still have been named our 65th Athlete of the Year (an honor he also won in ’22 after being “MVP” in ’20). Instead, he strung together four more wins on the circuit to seal an undefeated season of 15 victories. He has only lost four competitions in the last five years.
In Chorzów on August 25 he went even higher than he had in the Stade de France three weeks earlier, scoring World Record No. 10 with a clearance at 20-6½ (6.26). It was the first competition ever with 3 men over 6m.
“My first World Record also came in Poland, indoors in Toruń, so I have great memories from here. The track here is wonderful, the conditions today were perfect, everything just came together to allow me to do this.”
He concluded his season with his fourth straight victory in the Diamond League Final, an effort that came a week after his 100-meter match race against Karsten Warholm, an event he won in a PR 10.37.
Later in the fall, Duplantis popped the question to his girlfriend of several years, Desiré Inglander, successfully surprising her in a feat of planning that he called “way more nerve-wracking” than any vault competition.
Now he is 25, and back to training in Louisiana. He is deciding how to approach next year’s campaign, one that will ideally conclude at September’s World Championships in Tokyo. And beyond that is another Olympics or two. “[LA] shouldn’t be a problem.” He indicates that even Brisbane ’32 is in his sights.
“As far as just the way that I’m jumping right now and the level that I’m jumping at compared to all the other guys, I think that I should be able to stay on the top for a little while,” Duplantis told a Louisiana TV station, adding, “But I don’t know. I don’t think that far into the future. Honestly, I feel like I live in the present. I try to enjoy as much as I can what I’m doing now. I know that being an athlete goes super-quick.
“I’ve been jumping professionally since 2019, which is weird to think about because it’s like five years just go so fast. And so I’m just trying to enjoy it as much as I can because I know how quickly it goes. [I] try almost in a funny way not to think about the future too much because then I think I’m going to lose what I have right now in the moment. Trying to absorb everything that happened this past summer, trying to just soak in how amazing it was really to be able to win the Olympics, win it twice, break the World Record at the Olympics, my biggest childhood dream ever.”
He concludes, “It was a great season, one that’s going to be really hard to top.” But it would be foolish to suggest Mondo Duplantis has his best days behind him. Underneath that humility there burns the fire of a champion: “I know what I am, I know what kind of guy I am, and I know what I can do.”
