Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis Launched to New Heights

By SAMUEL BARRET ‘21

We often hear about broken records in mainstream sports such as football, soccer, and baseball. But, in more obscure sports-- like pole vaulting-- we don’t often hear about the accomplishments of athletes competing around the world. 

On February 8th, Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis broke the previous pole vaulting record with a jump that was marked at 6.17 meters--just .01 more than the previous record set by Renaud Lavillenie in 2014. Duplantis’ first attempt was unsuccessful, but he returned for a second time later in the competition and cleared the previous record. After completing the jump, he told World Athletics that it was “something [he] had wanted since [he] was 3 years old. It’s a big year, but it’s a good way to start it,” in reference to the upcoming Summer Olympics. At the event in Torun, Poland, where several other starting pole jumpers had only managed to reach 5.52 meters, Duplantis’ first jump was 5.72 meters, a fifth of a meter higher than any of his predecessors. Despite failing his first attempt at 6.17 meters, as reported by worldathletics.com,  when his thigh brushed the bar and sent it flying down to the mat below, his confidence was only heightened, and on his second attempt, Duplantis completed the jump.

Duplantis came onto the professional pole vaulting scene after a very successful career at LSU, where he had continued his father’s legacy. Armand Duplantis won, according to runnersworld.com, the 2019 NCAA indoor championship in 2019 after breaking both the NCAA indoor and outdoor pole vaulting records. It is thought that during his college career Duplantis turned down upwards of 80,000 dollars in order to continue to be eligible for NCAA competitions, as reported by newyorktimes.com. Duplantis made a big decision when he announced that he would compete under the Swedish flag instead of the American flag, citing the difficulty of the American qualifying process for the Olympics. In the American process, only one set of trials takes place over three or four days, so one bad day could completely ruin an athlete’s plans to attend the summer games. For the Swedish team, the trials are spread out over a number of different events, decreasing the risk factor when an athlete is qualifying. In addition to increased leniency in qualifying, worldatheletics.org celebrates Mondo Duplantis’ choice to follow his mother’s path by competing for Sweden instead of the United States. He has already qualified to compete for Sweden in the upcoming Tokyo Summer Olympics. 

Throughout his pole vaulting career, Duplantis has been setting records. Since the age of seven, he has held the height record at one point in time in almost every age group--an impressive feat according to worldatheletes.org. This accomplishment has played a big role in his international recognition and also in his favorability for the gold medal at the Olympic Games this summer. 

Now at age twenty, Duplantis clearly has a long road of success ahead of him and perhaps more records in store. Hopefully, his accomplishments will be brought to the forefront of sports news similarly to the accomplishments in more mainstream sports.