“Mondo,” a pole vaulter, is gifted with knowing how to put on a show. Despite the conclusion of the evening’s Olympic track events, the 80,000 spectators at the Stade de France were still fully energized. Armand Duplantis rested the pole on his right shoulder with a deep breath. He then lifted the long piece of carbon fiber and took off down the runway, soaring into the night sky.
Duplantis broke another world record when he landed on the padding on the other side of the sky-high, pink-tinted bar, already the winner of another Olympic gold medal. Duplantis, a 24-year-old from Louisiana who played for his mother’s homeland, Sweden, cleared 6.25 meters (20 feet, 6 inches), breaking the world record for the ninth time, but for the first time on his sport’s grandest stage.
Duplantis sprinted to the stands to embrace his lover, celebrating his record and second Olympic gold with friends and family who were dressed in blue and yellow. The king and queen of Sweden were also in attendance to see their nation’s latest historic achievement in pole vaulting.
Those in attendance agreed. Duplantis has positioned himself alongside, if not above, Sergei Bubka as the greatest in the event’s history by securing a second consecutive gold medal and breaking the world record for the ninth time—each by one centimeter. He is also in discussion with America’s Ryan Crouser, a world-record holder and three-time gold medalist in shot put, as one of the most dominant field athletes.
Duplantis stands in a class of his own when it comes to delivering great theater. After securing victory over Kendricks and setting an Olympic record by clearing 6.10 meters, he had the bar raised to one centimeter above the world-record height. Following his first miss, he took a break to review video footage with his parents, who met decades ago on the LSU track and field team. Another miss followed, then another long break.
The fans were clapping along to the rhythm and singing to the French song “Alleur de Feu” (“Light the Fire”), anticipating Mondo’s leap into a new record. Duplantis, who is a homegrown talent, honed his skills on a pole vault pit his parents dug in their backyard in Lafayette, Louisiana. During long afternoons of jumping in that pit, he often imagined himself breaking a world record on his final jump at the Olympics.
He is sure not prepared for the celebrations that would follow a world record and an Olympic title. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” was playing loudly and proudly outside the stadium an hour after the stadium cleared, marking the joyous occasion.
