Sweden’s pole vault king Armand Duplantis returned to the scene of his first world record in Torun, Poland, to win a record-equalling fourth world indoor title in dominant fashion on Saturday.
Duplantis, who set the first of his 15 world records (6.17m) in the Polish city back in 2020, vaulted six times and cleared the bar each time, winning with a best of 6.25m.
In a masterclass his rivals could only look on in awe as Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis took silver (6.05m) and Australian Kurtis Marschall bronze (6.00).
“Jumping first in the order and having Manolo (Karalis) jump as well as he was made it difficult but also fun and challenging,” said Duplantis.
“The arena in Torun has a special place in my heart - it changed my life as this is where I set my first world record. It is great to come back here and compete in front of this crowd.”
In a rarely seen sight given he usually comes in after some athletes have had a few attempts at lower heights, Duplantis actually opened the competition, sailing over 5.50m.
Karalis skipped that height, but went clear at his 5.70m opener. Both cleared 5.85m, but Duplantis opted out of 5.95m, which posed Karalis no problem.
The bar was raised to 6.00m, Duplantis sailing over at the first time of asking, but Karalis failed on his first effort.
Marschall then cleared the once-mythical height, closely followed by the Greek at the second time of asking, eight of the 12-strong field having already been eliminated by that stage.
Norway’s Sondre Guttormsen ambitiously skipped the 6m mark and the bar went up to 6.05m.
Karalis was successful, but it was too much for Guttormsen and Marschall, who took bronze.
Duplantis shared a fist bump and a few words with Karalis after the Australian’s failure, the duo in muted realisation that it was now the business end of proceedings.
The Swede soared over at 6.10m to roars from the raucous crowd.
Karalis sat that height out and the bar went up to 6.15m, just 2cm short of the Greek’s personal best set this month at the Greek indoor champs.
Duplantis was first up and made no mistake to up the pressure on his closest rival and good friend, who tried to respond to that by also passing on 6.15m.
That left him facing the bar at 6.20m for what would have been a new personal best, and he went awfully close, a slight brush of his chest bringing the bar down.
Encouraged by that close failure, Karalis then gambled on passing again, leaving Duplantis to tackle 6.25m, which he did with aplomb, albeit leaving the bar wobbling.
With ‘Zorba’s Dance’ booming out over the tannoy, Karalis failed at that height, leaving him with a third and final effort.
But with Duplantis clapping along in time, the Greek botched that attempt and had to settle for silver.
That left the US-born Swede, as is so often the case, with the stadium at his mercy and everyone baying for yet another world record attempt, having gone out to 6.31m just days before these worlds.
But that was not to be as the athlete known as ‘Mondo’ called it a night, to leave World Athletics president Sebastian Coe perhaps breathing a sigh of relief.
“I have said to Mondo,” Coe said. “If he goes on breaking world records, we’re not only going to be cancelling our summer party, we’ll probably be cancelling the Christmas party as well.
“I seem to spend a lot of time writing out cheques for Mondo!” added Coe of the Swede who has matched Sergey Bubka’s record of four world indoor titles.
Duplantis explained his decision not to go for a world record as a simple one.
“Today, it was about the battle, it was a tough competition, that is why I did not go for a world record,” he said.
“After all those jumps, it was difficult to go back to back. You only get three minutes on the clock, which is not full rest at all.”
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