COMPETING IN FRONT OF the biggest crowd of his life — with the 75,000 capacity of the Stade de France dwarfing the Eugene and Budapest arenas where he won his ’22 and ’23 world titles — Mondo Duplantis didn’t flinch, didn’t get nervous and did what he does best… fly high into the night sky.
Duplantis’s clearance at 20-6 (6.25), with all eyes on him with the rest of the action having finished almost a half-hour before, made it World Record No. 9 for the superstar Swede.
“I haven’t processed how fantastic that moment was,” said Duplantis, after the celebrations had died down and the stadium had started to empty.
“It’s one of those things that don’t really feel real, such an out-of-body experience. It’s still hard to kind of land right now.
“What can I say? I just broke a World Record at the Olympics, the biggest possible stage for a pole vaulter. [My] biggest dream since a kid was to break the World Record at the Olympics, and I’ve been able to do that in front of the most ridiculous crowd I’ve ever competed in front of.
“I tried to clear my thoughts as much as I could,” he said, aware that every time he stepped on the runway the stadium would reverberate to the chant of “Mondo! Mondo!, Mondo!”
“The crowd was going crazy. It was so loud in there, it sounded like an American football game. I have a little bit of experience being in a 100,000-capacity stadium [LSU’s Tiger Stadium where he’s watched college football games], but I was never the center of attention. [I was] just trying to channel the energy everybody was giving me, and they were giving me a lot of it. It worked out.”
Into the bargain, Duplantis became just the second man to win back-to-back Olympic titles, following in the footsteps of Bob Richards’ ’52 and ’56 triumphs.
At just 24, who’s to say he can’t 3-peat in LA in four years’ time?
In a competition of outstanding depth, 10 men were still in the competition at 19-2¼ (5.85) with 5 going over, including a typical soaring first-time effort from Duplantis — who cleared the bar by 11 inches from the TV analysis. Another pair of vaulters, including Sam Kendricks, passed upwards after first-time failures.
At 19-4¼ (5.90), Duplantis passed but the 2-time world champion Kendricks responded and went immediately clear as did Greece’s Emmanouíl Karalís, who was still flawless, and Philippines’ EJ Obiena, who like Kendricks had a failure earlier.
Kendricks — who was clearly enjoying his return to an Olympics after taking the Rio ’16 bronze but missing out on Tokyo after catching Covid in the Japanese capital and being quarantined — then went over 19-6¼ (5.95) at the first time of asking to exert just the tiniest bit of pressure on Duplantis.
But Duplantis responded in magnificent and predictable fashion to continue his clean card.
Karalís then failed once and passed upwards, gambling that none of the 3 other men still vaulting could rise to the occasion: Obiena, as well as Australia’s Kurtis Marschall and Turkey’s Ersu Şaşma, who both cleared 19-2¼ (5.85) but continued unsuccessfully taking attempts as the bar rose.
It paid off and Karalís became the first Greek pole vault medallist since ’56, when Georgios Roubanis made history as the first vault medalist to use a fiberglass pole.
With the medalists decided, 19-8¼ (6.00) was the height at which their order was confirmed.
Duplantis once again went flying clear with almost 8 inches to spare while neither Kendricks nor Karalís were particularly close and took silver and bronze.
The stage was now set for superlatives as Duplantis became the last athlete in action in the Stade de France.
He made 20-¼ (6.10) with consummate ease to add 7cm (3 inches) to Thiago Braz’s Olympic Record from Rio and then had the bar moved up to 6.25 (20-6) for the sixth time this season since clearing his last WR of 20-5¾ (6.24) at the Xiamen DL back in April.
After two good attempts, taking the bar off with his knees on the way down, he corrected these minor flaws on his final attempt to put daylight between himself and the bar and write his latest entry into athletics history.
Into the bargain, as a side note, he became the first vaulter to set a WR at the Olympics since Poland’s Władysław Kozakiewicz cleared 18-11½ (5.78) in the infamous Moscow ’80 final.
He now also has 86 clearances at 6m or better in 62 competitions, raising the question, how soon now before he achieves his century at this benchmark of vaulting excellence?
MEN’S POLE VAULT RESULTS
FINAL (August 05)
(temperature 86-82F/30-28C; humidity 33-37%)
1. Mondo Duplantis (Swe) 20-6 (6.25) WR (old WR 20-5½/6.24 Duplantis ’24) (OR);
2. Sam Kendricks (US) 19-6¼ (5.95);
3. Emmanouíl Karalís (Gre) 19-4¼ (5.90);
4. EJ Obiena (Phi) 19-4¼ (5.90);
5. Ersu Şaşma (Tur) 19-2¼ (5.85);
6. Kurtis Marschall (Aus) 19-2¼ (5.85);
7. Bokai Huang (Chn) 19-¼ (5.80) PR;
8. Sondre Guttormsen (Nor) 19-¼ (5.80);
=9. Bo Kanda Lita Baehre (Ger) 18-8¼ (5.70);
=9. Oleg Zernikel (Ger) 18-8¼ (5.70);
11. Menno Vloon (Neth) 18-8¼ (5.70);
12. Valters Kreišs (Lat) 18-½ (5.50).
>
| 18-½ | 18-8¼ | 19-¼ | 19-2¼ | 19-4¼ | 19-6¼ | 19-8¼ | 20-6 | |
| Guttormsen | o | xxo | o | xp | xp | x | — | — |
| Kendricks | o | o | o | xp | o | o | xxx | — |
| Zernikel | o | o | xxp | x | — | — | — | — |
| Lita Baehre | o | o | xxp | x | — | — | — | — |
| Vloon | o | xxo | xxx | — | — | — | — | — |
| Duplantis | p | o | p | o | p | o | o | xxo |
| Huang | o | xo | o | xxx | — | — | — | — |
| Karalís | o | o | o | o | o | xp | xx | — |
| Marschall | o | o | xp | o | xp | xx | — | — |
| Kreišs | xo | xxx | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Şaşma | o | o | o | o | xp | xx | — | — |
| Obiena | o | o | xp | o | o | xxx | — | — |
| 5.50 | 5.70 | 5.80 | 5.85 | 5.90 | 5.95 | 6.00 | 6.25 |
QUALIFYING (August 03; auto-qualifier 19-¼/5.80)
Qualifiers: Marschall & Kreiss cleared 18-8¼/5.70, all others cleared 18-10¼/5.75 (=highest qualifier ever)
Non-qualifiers: [18-8¼/5.70— =highest-non-qualifier ever]—Claudio Michel Stecchi (Ita), Thibaut Collet (Fra);
[18-4½/5.60]—Anthony Ammirati (Fra), Simen Guttormsen (Nor), Robert Sobera (Pol), Ben Broeders (Bel), Piotr Lisek (Pol), David Holý (CzR), Jie Yao (Chn), Jacob Wooten (US);
[17-8½/5.40]—Torben Blech (Ger), Robin Emig (Fra), Matěj Ščerba (CzR), Pedro Buaró (Por), Chris Nilsen (US), Tao Zhong (Chn), Urho Kujanpää (Fin);
… nh—Hussain Asim Al-Hizam (Sau).