Armand
Duplantis
Sweden
·
Athletics
Date of birth | November 10, 1999 |
|---|---|
Birthplace | Lafayette, Louisiana, USA |
Age | 26 |
Nationality | Sweden |
Career start | 2015 |
Disciplines | Pole Vault |
Armand Duplantis, or 'Mondo' as he's commonly known, comes from an athletic family. His father, Greg, was a pole vaulter and his mother, Helena, is a former heptathlete and volleyball player. His two older brothers also took up sports, with Andreas previously representing Sweden in the pole vault, while Antoine opted for baseball in high school and is today playing professionally. His younger sister, Johanna, is also a pole vaulter.
Though born and raised in the USA, Armand decided to represent his mother's country of Sweden. Since then he has endeared himself to the Swedish public – not only for winning numerous accolades, but for embracing the culture by learning Swedish and driving a Swedish car.
Mondo began his pole-vaulting journey as a four-year-old at the family’s home in Lafayette, Louisiana, and quickly showed his aptitude for the discipline. He set his first age-group world best at seven years old with a jump of 3.86m. As a 10-year-old, he surpassed the previous world bests for ages 11 and 12. By July 2015, he was in the position of holding the world-best height in all age groups from age seven to age 12; he had also held the age 13 record until it was broken in May 2015.
In 2018, Armand began his season by improving upon the world indoor junior record by jumping 5.83m at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada, USA. It didn’t stop there, however, and he proceeded to improve his indoor record to 5.88m and went better still when he reached 6.05m at the 2018 European Athletics Championships, a height which tied him for the fourth-best in history. In 2019 he took the silver medal at the World Championships in Doha with a jump of 5.97m.
With a trajectory like that, it always seemed a matter of 'when' and not 'if' he would challenge for the senior men's world record. That moment duly arrived on February 8, 2020, when he cleared a stunning vault of 6.17m at a World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Torun, Poland to break Renaud Lavillenie's previous record of 6.16m, which had stood since 2014.
Then, only one week later, Armand increased his record by a further centimeter, to 6.18m at the IAAF World Indoor Tour event in Glasgow, UK. He added yet more history at the Diamond League meeting in Rome in September 2020 when he broke Sergey Bubka's 26-year-old men’s outdoor pole vault world record with a jump of 6.15m. That achievement was reflected in his winning of the World Athlete of the Year accolade at the 2020 World Athletics Awards.
Armand continued to dominate in 2021, claiming victory and a new championship record of 6.05m at the European Indoor Championships before winning gold at the Games in Tokyo.
More success followed in early 2022, with victories at numerous meetings throughout Europe. Armand also improved on his own world record twice in the space of two weeks, first by clearing 6.19m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour event in Belgrade, Serbia, and then once again at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in the same city, this time clearing 6.20m. Once competition moved outside again later in the year, he set about raising the bar on the outdoor record, duly recording a new height of 6.16m at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.
Armand then went one better by setting another new world record at the 2022 World Athletics Championships – this time clearing 6.21m. It's no wonder he was named the 2022 Athlete of the Year.
Another record followed in early 2023, with Mondo raising his own world pole vault record to 6.22m at the All Star Perche indoor meet in Clermont-Ferrand, France. This was followed with yet another gold, this time at the 2023 World Athletics Championships before once again breaking his own world record in Oregon, USA, with a vault of 6.23m.
Already holding a slew of the highest vaults in history, Mondo will almost certainly be looking to set the bar even higher in the years to come.
Duplantis celebrates breaking the world record in Tokyo (again)
© Sona Maleterova/Red Bull Content Pool
Taking a breather before another jump
© Adam Klingeteg/Red Bull Content Pool
Duplantis's speed on the runway translate to height in his jump
© Adam Klingeteg/Red Bull Content Pool
He's been obsessed with pole vaulting since he was three-years-old
© Adam Klingeteg/Red Bull Content Pool