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’ clearance at 20-6¼ (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 been for 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 five going over, including a typical soaring first-time effort from Duplantis — who cleared the bar by 11 inches from the TV analysis. Another two 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…
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