Armand Duplantis is only 22 years old, but he has achieved almost everything in pole vaulting. At the Istaf hall meeting in Berlin, the Swede shows the spheres in which he moves as a matter of course. The only thing missing is the culmination of an impressive performance.
In extraordinary moments, it often seems as if time has stood still. Everything goes by in slow motion, seconds feel like minutes in the memory. Armand Duplantis was only missing a tiny bit in Berlin to create such a moment. The Swedish pole vaulter, whom everyone just calls “Mondo”, had a jump of 6.19 meters at the ISTAF Indoor. world record. After a 20-step run-up, Duplantis put the stick in the puncture box, catapulted himself up – and after landing clapped his hands over his head. Because after a short back and forth on the trailer, the slat had finally made its way down.
Duplantis could have been annoyed about missing the world record, but instead he said a remarkable sentence after the competition. “I am now at a point in my career where I continue to develop and improve in small steps.” This statement is not so remarkable because it comes from the reigning European champion, Olympic champion and world record holder. But because Duplantis formulated such a sentence less than two months after his 22nd birthday. The fact that he still broke the meeting record and his own world best for the year that evening was almost lost in the drama of his last jump.
“I’m really happy with the 6.03 meters,” Duplantis said afterwards. Only seven people have ever been better, but for the Swede such heights are now only a way station for the next attack on his own world record. In Berlin, Duplantis sailed easily and easily over his entry height of 5.59 meters, then over 5.70 meters, even 5.81 meters was not a challenge. In the pole vault, they call the clear crossing of the bar “building a house”, with Duplantis, to stay with the image, it has long been about skyscrapers.
No exception, but the rule
The Swede explained the two unusual failed attempts at 5.92 meters by saying that this was only his second competition this indoor season in Berlin. There is still a lack of rhythm and routine. “But that doesn’t worry me,” he had much more “recognized a lot of potential”. However, it was hard to miss when he confidently crossed the 5.92 meters in the third attempt. At 6.03 meters, the distance to the crossbar was not quite right in the first attempt, but things went much better in the second. “After that, the jumps felt really good,” said Duplantis, at the same time making it clear that acceptable performances for him begin where others have long since carefully packed their batons.
Like Torben Blech, for example, the reigning German indoor champion. He stayed well below his own expectations that evening with a jump of 5.45 meters. At least according to the impression left by the former decathlete when he sat on the mat after his retirement. Hardly any other discipline is as difficult as the pole vault, in hardly any other discipline do small mistakes have such a ruthless effect on the result. Because not only the height has to be right, but also the approach, the insertion of the stick, the jump into the bending stick, the rolling up on the way up, the turn to cross the bar, the timely release of the stick and of course the landing.
Duplantis, who won the U18 World Cup as a 15-year-old, has almost perfected these processes. Outstanding performances like this evening are not the exception, but the rule. In ten of his eleven most recent competitions, the 22-year-old jumped 6.00 meters or higher, since the legendary Sergej Bubka no one has mastered this mark so consistently. By the time he finally retired in 2000, the Ukrainian had broken the world record 35 times. Duplantis is the only jumper so far who has been able to surpass the Ukrainian’s records both indoors and outdoors. In view of such performances as in Berlin, it is only a matter of time before he will break his own world record again.