Athletics
From golden dreams to his own backyard – how 2020 took a turn for ‘Mondo’
Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis had a gold medal in his sights but, instead of aspiring for to hit new heights this summer, he ended up back home where it all began.
Summer 2020 was meant to be the biggest of Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis’s life. Instead, until recently he has been consigned to vaulting on the runway where it all began as a three-year-old in his parents’ backyard.
Rather than aspiring for more world records, the 20-year-old has been trying to steer clear of landing on the neighbour’s brick wall in Louisiana, USA.
But at the same time as having his bid to raise the bar in terms of the pole vault world record temporarily halted, there are elements in which he has embraced the basic nature of it all.
“Simplicity is a good word for it,” he said. “Things get more complicated now for me. When you add meets like the World Championships, and money gets involved, things like that mean it’s not just about pole vaulting.
Armand Duplantis's home training facility
© Red Bull Media House
“Being there in my backyard, everything was thrown away really – it’s like I was 10 years old again and jumping just to improve myself and trying to get better and have a good time doing it. It reminded me of simpler times.”
It is the backyard in which he first watched his father Greg, a former 5.80-metre pole vaulter, and his brother, Andreas, first vault, following suit at the age of three.
He said: “It definitely was this feeling of déjà vu when I was jumping there. I’d look at my dad again after each jump. I didn’t feel like a world record holder or anything other than what I was 10 years ago.
And instead of being the man that cleared a world-record 6.18m during the indoor season, the time at the family home brought him back to his roots.
“It’s the same as the kids here in the US playing catch with Dad with a baseball, or in Europe you and pops kicking a football around. For me, that was what we did when I grew up.”
But as well as a trip down memory lane, the Swedish athlete has also used the time to further hone his technique.
After fixing up a runway made up of rotten wood with his father, as well as bringing a neglected foam mat back to life, he focused on a six-step run-up to prepare himself for when competitions did resume.
“Pole vault is a very technical event” he said. “You need to keep that feeling of the pole in your hand, plus taking jumps is really crucial. It’s not like proper training where you can go six metres, but I felt comfortable at around 5-5.10 metres.
“I usually run from 20 steps, so that’s less than even half of my run. My game is being the fastest guy on the runway. You take the speed aspect away then it becomes tougher. So, it’s good for me to work with less speed.”
Already, he has had the opportunity to put that lockdown work to good effect with some behind-closed-doors competitions in Europe, having now relocated to Sweden for the remainder of the summer.
Armand Duplantis and his dad in the backyard
© Red Bull Media House
Now, with the biggest event of his career shifted by a year, his mindset is simply that, “I can be in better shape next year”. Is he feeling sufficiently self-assured, though? “Yeah, why not?” he said. “I’m really confident the way I’m jumping right now. If I’m in good shape and jumping the way I can jump I know I can win any competition that there is.”
For now, though, his competition focus has switched to a revised calendar in front of empty stands, and the lack of crowd, he admits, makes it difficult to have aspirations for a world record.
He said: “It’s good to do some competing again because, for me, training has been something that the only motivation in it is the competitions for the most part.
“In a typical year, I train hard to be the best I can be at major competitions whatever the biggest competition is. To have big events taken away from you, it was a little tougher to find motivation.”
The backyard set-up certainly seemed to help Duplantis when competitive action returned. At the Diamond League meeting in Rome in September 2020 he broke Sergey Bubka's 26-year-old men’s outdoor pole vault world record with a jump of 6.15m.
