HE HAS PLAYED THE PART BEFORE to rousing cheers, but being a World Record-breaking vaulter is a role that gets harder each time, not easier.
The reality of the task before our Athlete Of The Year, Mondo Duplantis, is not lost on the young Louisianan, who recently turned 26. Yet stressing about it does not help. One might think that when he stood on the runway for the final time in Tokyo, having already knocked the bar off its standards twice, he was in the throes of a courageous struggle with his inner demons.
Decidedly not so he said in the press conference afterwards. Instead, Duplantis keeps it simple, helped along by “confidence in my preparation, confidence in myself, in who I am as an athlete and jumper.”
He added, “It’s not the first time I’ve been in these situations. You get used to it as the years go on. You have a better understanding of yourself and how to get the most out of yourself. Just going out there and playing the game.
“I try not to make it more serious than it is. It sometimes feels like your whole life, but it’s really not that deep. You’re just trying to go out there and do your best and jump as high as you possibly can. No matter what, I was going to make sure that I was going to leave everything out there.”
And then he soared over 20-8 (6.30), a height no other human has ever scaled while being shot off the end of a pole. World Record No. 14. And he said nothing about the experience has gotten boring since his first one in ’20.
“Breaking the World Record is pretty tough to beat. You dream about that moment as an athlete for such a long time and then when it happens, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually real in the moment. It’s an absolute euphoric type of experience. They always feel surreal when they happen.”
He continued, “It’s weird. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it almost never feels fully real. If I’m running really well and I have a lot of energy and speed for the takeoff and I’m using a very stiff pole, then I feel like when I catch the wave and I catch that timing of the pole, then it just launches me up into the air. It’s kind of like flying from a catapult.
“I don’t know a feeling like it. I haven’t done skydiving or anything, but I’ve done stuff where you jump off a building or something like that onto a mat or in the water and it doesn’t compare. It’s not the same type of feeling as the flying that we do in pole vaulting. It’s so much more… It’s a lot more controlled in some ways, but it’s such an empowering feeling. It’s so cool. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I know that I’m most likely never going to get that kind of feeling with anything after sports, so I’m trying to really enjoy it as much as I can while I have it.”
The Tokyo World Record was his fourth of the season, the most since Sergey Bubka hit that number in ’91. The parade started at the vault meet in Clermont-Ferrand on February 28. Before a 5000-strong French audience he went over 20-6¾ (6.27).
Then he did it outdoors at the Stockholm Diamond League, in front of a home crowd of 13,000 on July 15. His 20-7¼ (6.28) marked the first time in his career he had delivered a World Record on Swedish soil.
The next global standard came over 20-7½ (6.29) at the István Gyulai Memorial in Budapest on August 12. That set the stage for a return to Tokyo, where he won Olympic gold in ’21 but failed in three attempts at a would-be WR 20-3¾ (6.19).
Sixteen competitions in ’25; 16 wins. World gold indoors and out. Eight Diamond League victories. Yet as for all vaulters, most of his competitions ended in a bar falling from the sky. There were 20 failed World Record attempts (6.29 proved a real bear, with 10 attempts before he flew over).
Yet Duplantis said that he doesn’t define the fervent wishes of his fans for a record at the end of every competition as pressure. “I think people expect WRs out of me a lot of the time and I think that there’s also a pretty fair reason for that too because I’ve broken the WR a lot of times. I’ve showed that whenever the conditions are right and whenever I’m really up for it and whenever it’s there, then you know I have a really good chance of leaving it up there…
“I think the pressure is even a little bit let off in some ways, because I’ve already won the competition. That’s the first and foremost thing that I need to do. After that, it’s more the cherry on top, dessert. And after that it’s just a bit of a blur. It’s like a bonus round that you get to play.”
The journey to his third AOY honor has been a unique one for Duplantis, having started when he was a small boy. “I was a kid with big dreams and aspirations of being the best in the world and every time I went in my backyard to jump I just was picturing being in this situation. I feel like I almost have déjà vu in these moments because I dreamt of it so much as a kid. To be here is manifest, I guess.
“I try to be as grateful as I can, but it’s hard, because you get so used to things, unfortunately, and you always just look forward and it’s always the next thing, then the next thing.”
The essential question that remains is how does he keep going? How does one man maintain the edge he needs to conquer the world, year after year?
“For me the motivation comes from… I can’t lose. I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to go to the track and let these guys beat me… Every time I step on the track, I just have to make sure that I stay on their throats. I want to do what I know that I’m capable of. If anything it gets easier because I know the level that I can compete at and I demand that of myself.”
