Peerless Duplantis caps golden night with pole vault world record

PARIS :Sweden's Mondo Duplantis retained his Olympic pole vault title with ludicrous ease on Monday, needing only four successful attempts to take gold with 6.00 metres, then capped a memorable night by beating his own world record with a clearance of 6.25.

Duplantis, one of the hottest favourites of the athletics programme, went above and beyond to the delight of the crowd.

Having seen off silver medallist American Sam Kendricks and Greece's bronze winner Emmanouil Karalis for the gold, he duly knocked off 6.10 at the first attempt to overhaul Thiago Braz's Olympic record 6.03 from the 2016 Rio Games.

With all other events finished, the capacity Stade de France crowd then focused fully on Duplantis' bright yellow shirt and neon pink-lit pole frame as he tried to beat the world record of 6.24 he set in April.

The first two attempts were close but he slipped over and around the bar with incredible athleticism on the third, bringing a deafening roar from the 69,000 fans who had stayed to witness athletics history.

Still only 24, Duplantis is the world record holder, double Olympic, double world, triple European and double indoor world champion.

"I haven’t processed how fantastic that moment was," he said. "It’s one of those things that don’t really feel real, such an out of body experience.

"It's 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.

"I felt really prepared. I’ve never been so locked in my life than in these past three months. Now I’m just ready to eat a bunch of food. The party is going to be pretty big."

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