The guy everyone came to watch was the only one on the track. Since Armand “Mondo” Duplantis remembered to bring his poles to Stade de France, he had won in every way. He uses a different plane than any other pole vaulter. He practices for the times when the competition is gone, when every eye is on him and his only adversary is himself.
Eight times before Monday night, Duplantis smashed the global record. One more leap would decide whether Duplantis could lower the flying barrier by one centimetre.
Duplantis made two fruitless attempts to beat his world record. He informed his father and coach, Greg, of a key change before his third. He raced down the runway and flew into the night, becoming a Paris Olympics legend.
Louisiana-born pole-vaulting genius Duplantis, who attended LSU and plays for Sweden, cleared 6.25 meters (20 feet 6 inches) on his last try. Stadium lights flickered at Stade de France. The greatest audience he had ever seen outside of Tiger Stadium formed a frenzied wall of sound. He rushed off the mat to the corner of the stadium, where he hugged his fiancée and slapped high-fives with his siblings.
“If I don’t beat this moment in my career, I’m pretty okay with that,” Duplantis said. “I don’t think you can do much better than what just happened.”
Duplantis pushes boundaries as much as any competitor at these Games. For one night, he would be pleased with a new barrier. Duplantis mingled subsequently on the track with Carl Gustaf Folke Hubertus, the king of Sweden. (“Fam vad cool,” Duplantis remarked in Swedish — extremely cool.) He intended to celebrate with family, and his brothers would pull him to karaoke, voice hoarse from interviews and everything.
“I’ll probably have some liquid courage and get up onstage,” Duplantis remarked.
He had established himself the supreme performer long before Monday. Duplantis initially broke the world record in February 2020, moving it up one centimeter to 6.17 meters. He has subsequently made it his profitable plaything. Duplantis had broken it seven more times subsequently, always by a centimeter, which increases the amount of times he may trigger sponsorship incentives for world records.
Duplantis’s record at the start of the night stood at 6.24 meters (20 feet 5¾ inches). Only three other guys in the field had topped a six-meter bar, and American Sam Kendricks had not done it in five years.
The competitive part of the night was about the silver medal. Kendricks won it with a 5.95-meter clearing three years after an incident that soured him. He tested positive for the coronavirus and could not participate in the Tokyo Olympics. Kendricks, the Rio de Janeiro bronze medalist, was upset that a follow-up test he thought cleared him was not utilised. He was outraged at how he was thrown in isolation and, in his opinion, abandoned.
“I don’t want to be bitter,” Kendricks remarked. “I want to love all the people that are involved in it. I know back in the day, there’s a lot of people who love me that were pushed between a rock and a hard place. They weren’t able to be near to me. And it saddens me that I have to be upset at somebody.”
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Kendricks takes satisfaction in his two victory against Duplantis, including at the 2019 world championships. He recognised that ultimately the genius finding his path will overtake him. “I’m a very small boogeyman in Mondo’s life,” Kendricks added.
The darkness at Stade de France gently arced toward Duplantis. The mayhem of the women’s 5,000 meters past. American Valarie Allman captured her second straight discus gold medal. Duplantis’s defeated adversaries celebrated their silver and bronze. Only he remained.
First, he raised the bar at 6.10 meters, surpassing the 6.03-meter Olympic record. Then he requested for the bar to placed at 6.25 meters, higher than it had ever been set before.
On his initial try, he smacked his right elbow on top of the bar. On his second, he gained the necessary height but just after he started his fall to Earth, his chest impacted the bar. He strolled to the first row of the stands and chatted with his father.
Pole vaulters are able to shift the standards — the uprights that keep the bar in place — closer or farther from their launching point. Duplantis had taken his first two tries at the record with the standards 70 cm distant from the plant box.
Duplantis had leaped high enough on his second effort, but he had not flown far enough. So Greg created a solution. Duplantis would move the standards from 70 to 60 cm – 10 centimeters closer to his launch.
When Duplantis stepped to the official, an impulse overwhelmed him. At many events, the standards only move in increments of five. With Olympic-level equipment, officials could be as accurate as they wished. Duplantis requested not for the 60 that Greg recommended but 62.
“It would be dope and a nice jab at my father if 62 was the perfect number,” Duplantis remarked.
Once the standards had been replaced, Duplantis moved his pole to the rear of the runway and rested it on his shoulder. When Duplantis was a youngster, Greg, who was a pole vaulter at LSU, created a runway in his backyard out of an abandoned track he acquired for pennies on the dollar. Each time his youngest kid raced down it, he envisioned a bar set beyond the world record in the Olympic final.
“I felt like I had already been in this moment 1,000 times,” Duplantis added.
Now, Duplantis lifted his arms above his head and clapped once. The audience answered with thunder. Another clap, then another. Faster: Clap. Clap. Clap clap. Clap clap clap clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap.
Duplantis bolted. His amazing skill starts with his quickness. Many pole vaulters take up the sport after they realize they will never possess the world-class speed of a sprinter. Duplantis could have it.
“He runs with God’s hand on his back,” Kendricks remarked.
The bright yellow pole sparkled in his palms. At full speed, Duplantis pushed the top of his pole into the plant box.
“You feel the takeoff spot,” Duplantis remarked. “Right when I hit it at the takeoff, I kind of knew.”
Duplantis reversed, climbed two floors above the ground, twisted his body and folded himself like a trapdoor. The bar stayed static. He drifted to the mat and landed with a shout. He hugged his family, and then he stepped back to the coaches box and embraced Greg.
Duplantis had reached another boundary. Every fresh mark brings the question of how far he can fly. He spends his life to broaden the possibility. For one night, Duplantis would cherish what he had done instead of what he might do next.
“I don’t even really care right now,” Duplantis remarked. “Why would I care about anything else other than what just happened?”
