ONCE AGAIN, it was The Mondo Duplantis Show as the superstar Swedish vaulter from Louisiana provided a superb sequel to his WR-setting display in Eugene last year.
Duplantis got his second WC gold in dominant fashion — despite Budapest’s witnessing the best ever major champs vault for top-level depth — finishing two bars and 10cm better than anyone else.
He was flawless over 18-2½ (5.55), 19-2¼ (5.85), 19-6¼ (5.95), 19-8¼ (6.00), 19-10¼ (6.05) and 20-¼ (6.10) before finally showing he was mortal with 3 failures at a WR height of 20-5¼ (6.23).
Nevertheless — with the rest of the penultimate night’s program coming to a halt as he took his WR attempts — Mondo was close enough on his second and third tries to suggest that entering the recordbooks for a seventh time may not be too far away.
“I’m really happy about all these consecutive golds,” He said. “I don’t know where this one ranks but I’m happy to keep winning. This was maybe the craziest atmosphere I’ve ever competed in, so it meant a lot to be able to turn on a pole vault show for them.
“I felt a bit of pressure as defending champion but I’m glad to come through it. It feels pretty good to be on top again. I try not to set limits and barriers on myself and once I started to realize a World Record was possible I tried not to see it as a record, just as another height I can achieve.
“But today never really felt like a World Record competition. It was more a pure competition and that’s how it can be. It was great fun but I’d spent a lot of energy by the time it got up to 6.23,” he added.
Behind Duplantis, there was a superb duel for the other medals, as 11 were still in the competition at 19-2¼ (5.85) and 5 made it over: Australia’s Kurtis Marschall, Mondo and France’s Thibaut Collet in that order went over at the first time of asking. The Philippines’ Oregon22 bronze medalist EJ Obiena cleared on second try and U.S. champ Chris Nilsen on his third.
Mondo passed 19-4¼ (5.90) but Obiena, Nilsen and Collet made it on their first attempts, the Frenchman PRing, while Marschall passed upwards after one failure.
However, the gamble paid off for the Australian. After watching Obiena go over 19-6¼ (5.95), Marschall followed suit moments later but so too did Nilsen and then Mondo, as Collet failed and opted to…
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