The pole vaulter they call “Mondo” really can put on a show.
With the rest of the action at the Olympic track wrapped up for the evening and the crowd of 80,000 at the Stade de France still on their feet, Armand Duplantis rested the pole on his right shoulder and took a deep breath. Then, he lifted up that long piece of carbon fiber and took off down the runway and into the night sky.
Another Olympic gold medal already was his. When he came crashing down into the padding on the other side of that sky-high, pink-tinted bar, so was another world record.
Duplantis, the Louisiana-born 24-year-old who competes for his mother’s native Sweden, cleared 6.25 meters (20 feet, 6 inches) to break the world record for the ninth time — but the first time on his sport’s grandest stage.
His next move was a sprint to the stands to hug his girlfriend and celebrate his record and second Olympic gold with all those friends and family wearing yellow and blue. The country’s king and queen were on hand, as well, to witness Sweden’s latest history-making leap into the pole vault pit.
“It’s hard to understand, honestly,” he said. “If I don’t beat this moment in my career, then I’m pretty OK with that. I don’t think you can get much better than what just happened.”
It felt only right that the Duplantis drama came with Noah Lyles in the building.
A night after the American sprint star electrified track with a .005-second victory in the men’s 100 meters, Lyles was on hand to receive his gold medal and watch Duplantis electrify field to the tune of 6.25 meters — about the height of a typical two-story building.
The drama played out over a half hour at the end of the night, long after a slow-and-strange women’s 5,000 meters had wrapped up and after Keely Hodgkinson had captured the first track medal for Britain at this meet in the 800, the evening’s last race.
That usually signals a time for folks to start heading for the exits.
But Mondo’s encore was worth staying for, and most everyone did.
“Mondo is an extraordinary jumper because of four factors,” said American Sam Kendricks, who finished second. “One, he’s got a great coach for a long time. He’s had a lot of time to do it. He’s got great equipment and understanding of the event. He’s a fan of sport, and he’s got God’s hand on his back.”
By winning a second straight gold medal and breaking the record for the ninth time — each time by one centimeter — Duplantis is now next to, if not above, Sergei Bubka as the greatest ever in this event.
Duplantis is in the conversation with America’s Ryan Crouser, a world-record holder and three-time gold medalist in shot put, as among the most dominant athletes on the field side of this sport.
And when it comes to delivering great theatre, as he showed once again, Duplantis is in a class of his own.
After he sealed the victory over Kendricks, then captured the Olympic record by clearing 6.10 meters, Duplantis had the bar moved to one centimeter higher than the world-record height.
Following his first miss, he used a break while Lyles was receiving t he gold medal for his 100-meter victory, to study video on a tablet with his parents, who met decades ago while they were both on the LSU track and field team.
Another miss ensued, then another long break.
The fans clapped in rhythm and sang along to the French song “Alleur de Feu” — “Light the Fire” — getting ready for Mondo’s leap into history.
A home-grown talent, Duplantis learned this sport on a pole vault pit his parents dug in their back yard in Lafayette, Louisiana.
During long afternoons of jumping in that pit, Duplantis often envisioned himself going for a world record on his last jump at the Olympics.
Maybe not in the equation — the parties that world record and Olympic title would set off. An hour after the stadium cleared, the song “Dancing Queen” by the Swedish group ABBA was playing loud and proud outside the stadium.
“For it to actually happen the way that it did and for me to put the right jump together at the right time, it’s just, like, how do you explain it?” he said. “It’s bigger than words for me.”
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