WITH 19 STRAIGHT wins since his last loss at the ’23 Monaco DL, four World Records in that period, the world indoor title and, of course, his second Olympic gold earned in Paris, Mondo Duplantis was the most prohibitive of favorites.
Mid-50s temperatures and high humidity seemed to constrain the competition generally, but Duplantis prevailed to carry off his fourth straight DL trophy.
Four made it to the fourth setting, 19-1¼ (5.82) and three — Ben Broeders, Emmanouíl Karalís and Sam Kendricks — cleared it on first attempts as the lead went to Paris bronze medalist Karalís, who had a clean slate.
Duplantis passed to 19-5¼ (5.92) and as the others missed three times cleared, though not spectacularly, on his first go and second jump of the evening for the win.
He then sent the bar to 20-½ (6.11), a centimeter above his Van Damme Memorial meet record from ’23, slid over with ease on first try and called it a night.
“My legs felt terrible tonight,” he said, “and I´m just really tired. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks: the race against Karsten [that 100 match with Warholm in Zürich] and then I had to jump the day after. That took a lot more from my body than I expected. With 6.11 I got a good result, but the World Record wasn’t meant to be tonight. It’s not easy to do better each time. Everything needs to come together. I had some good jumps tonight and I´m really happy about that.
“Now it’s time to celebrate my beautiful season: I will drink some good Belgian beers tonight for sure.”
Results
1. Mondo Duplantis (Swe) 20-½ (6.11) (18-5¼, 19-5, 20-½) (5.62, 5.92, 6.11); 2. Emmanouil Karalis (Gre) 19-1 (5.82); 3. tie, Ben Broeders (Bel) & Sam Kendricks (US) 19-1; 5. tie, Thibaut Collet (Fra) & Chris Nilsen (US) 18-5¼ (5.62); 7. KC Lightfoot (US) 18-5¼.
