World Record No 9: Mondo Duplantis goes past Mondo Duplantis again, the only way Mondo Duplantis knows how to

Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis raised the bar again, 1 cm at a time. And he did it the only way he knows how to: by putting on a grand show of theatrics and skill at the grandest stage of them all.

For the ninth time, Mondo broke the men’s pole vault world record in front of an incredible crowd at the Stade de France late on Monday night, to clinch back-to-back Olympic gold medals. With 6.25m. Mondo overtook Mondo again at Paris 2024.

Let’s be honest. The men’s pole vault final is actually two different events. One, the actual final to decide the top three. That usually ends around the 6.00m mark. Then the Mondo Duplantis final begins. A competition unto itself. A one-man show. It is not uncommon even during regular season meets when Mondo is the last man competing, given how long pole vault events can go on for. Other events usually end before he goes for his record-breaking attempts.

But this felt even more special. This wasn’t just any meet. This was the Olympic final. This was at the Stade de France, with a capacity of 80,000. And so after the medals had been decided (for the record, 6.00m was enough for Mondo to win gold), the fans had only one thing to focus on. The one record that wasn’t in Mondo’s name was the Olympic record, before he pushed the bar to 6.10m and cleared it casually.

“But then the crowd egged him on to not stop because we wanted to see the world record, that’s what we were waiting for,” said Navin Madhavan, who was watching at the venue. “There was utter madness and celebration when we heard it was going to happen. The DJ / MC kept us busy with some karaoke of crowd favourites. After a couple of failed attempts (almost to show us he is human), the suspense was pretty high as the crowd and his fellow competitors played cheerleaders with the synchronised clap routine. We collectively held our breath. He cleared it and the roar that was let out was deafening. We immediately knew this was a moment we will recount forever as ‘I was there’.”
Vipul Yadav too was there. “The noise when he went for his second attempt was probably the loudest chorus of claps you will hear. And then… the roof came off when he cleared it. The French cheer a hero like crazy and they couldn’t have found a better one to cheer for. Even a while after the final was over, 90 percent of the stadium stayed back to cheer for him as he took a lap of honour,” he said.

Sweden's Armand Duplantis breaks the men's pole vault world record for the 9th time (6.25 m)pic.twitter.com/n3BL7iE6d3

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 6, 2024

Star of the show

Mondo thrived on this energy. “The crowd was going crazy. It was so loud in there, it sounded like an American football game. I have a little bit of experience of being in a 100,000- capacity stadium, but I was never the centre of attention. I was just trying to channel the energy everybody was giving me, and they were giving me a lot of it. It worked out,” he said later.

He put it as an ‘out of body experience’, and it wouldn’t be far off the mark to say a majority of the fans felt like that too.

One of the standout features of any men’s pole vault event at the highest level is the camaraderie that these elite athletes share. They all know, deep down, that they are competing for the second spot but they will Mondo on like he is one of their own.

Duplantis of Sweden vaulting to a new world record of 6.25 metres. REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel

“What can I say? I just broke a world record at the Olympics – the biggest possible stage for a pole vaulter. The biggest dream since I was a kid was to break the world record at the Olympics, and I’ve been able to do that in front of the most ridiculous crowd I’ve ever competed in front of,” the Swede, who is scarily still just 24 years old, added.

At a primal level, one watches sport because there needs to be a winner and there has to be a contest. If sport is predictable, it ceases to be enjoyable. Apart from the obvious appreciation of his skill, the biggest credit to Mondo is how he has made the mundane magnificent. Because there is really no doubt *if* Mondo will win. There is no unpredictability involved here. There ain’t any suspense.

And yet… he makes one tune in. He makes thousands of fans in the stands dance to his tunes. He gets them to clap to his rhythms. As he begins his run-up to the bar he has set for himself, literally and metaphorically, we know he is winning. And yet we can’t take our eyes off what he does next. In those moments, he is in a world of his own. It’s Mondo’s monde, and we are all just living in it.

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