With a jump of 6.24 meters in the first stage of the Diamond League, held in the Chinese city of Xiamen, the Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis set the world record again last Saturday for the eighth time.
After crossing the 5.62, 5.82 and 6.00 meters without fail, a mark that established him above the American Sam Kendricks, the reigning Olympic, World and European champion proliferated again on the first attempt and managed to increase the best historical record (6.23m) by one centimeter, which also belonged to him since September last year, when he succeeded in Eugene.
“I knew I could jump high, but there are a lot of things that have to be perfect and combined in the right way for that to really happen,” he said after the conquest. “I’m going to continue on the path I’m following now, making sure everything is in the right place for Paris,” he added. And he anticipated: “I think there are still higher heights for me”
It is the first outdoor record of the season for the 24-year-old athlete and the fourth different year in which he improved (2020, 2022 and 2023, the previous ones). The first of its historical records has already increased by seven centimeters. Only Sergei Bubka, between 1985 and 1994, broke the world record the most times, with 13 harvests.
With Bubka’s figure still far away, the most significant immediate challenge facing Mondo is the concrete possibility of knocking down Brazilian Thiago Braz Da Silva’s Olympic record of 6.03 meters in Rio 2016. In Tokyo 2020, the Swede’s winning jump was 6.02 m.