It’s well known. After a short break, it is necessary to resume sport and competition gently, so as not to inflict excruciating pain on your body. Softness, Armand Duplantis does not really know. For his first competition of the season, at home in Sweden a few weeks ago, “Mondo” passed a bar at 6.10 m. A week later, in Berlin this time, Duplantis settled for a “small” 6.06 m. Small, yes, because the man, who holds the world record for the discipline, with 6.21 m, has accustomed us to higher.
Moreover, this record is the obsession of the kid (yes, he is only 23 years old). If he tried, in vain, a bar at 6.22 m in Uppsala and Berlin, Armand Duplantis has made this quest his main objective. “What I’m really trying to do during this indoor season is to beat the world record, confided the Swede after his first winter outing. This is the main objective and almost the only goal I have in mind. With this objective, he will therefore be at the Liévin meeting, this Wednesday, and in Clermont-Ferrand in ten days.
Untouchable, or almost
The opportunity for the French public to admire the best pole vaulter of all time and, perhaps, to see a world record fall. Because, as far as the “fight” for first place is concerned, everything seems to be written in advance. We will make it short: Armand Duplantis will finish first, alone above 6 m. “If he is not injured, sick or in a day without, he is so above the others that, normally, he must win”, assures Philippe Collet, former French pole vaulter, whose sons Mathieu and Thibaut rub shoulders with Mondo on the jumpers.
Since August 2021, Armand Duplantis has been beaten only once (5.91 m), in September 2022 in Brussels, after a grueling season. The heretic is called Ernest Obiena, third in the Worlds of Eugene, in August, won by… Duplantis, of course. “Me, I was happy to have won, but I was not in a thought of the style: “Oh, I beat Mondo”, tells us the Filipino pole vaulter, who has a record at 5.94 m. Yes, I beat him once, and the likelihood of me doing it again is tiny, but when I’m at the end of the line, I think about going as high as possible. »
“I never fight for second place”
Before landing in Pas-de-Calais, Duplantis jumped 42 times six meters or more. Which leaves the competition, which struggles to reach this symbolic bar with regularity, forced to fight for the crumbs and the other two places on the podium. “He’s the best right now, and he might stay that way for quite a while, but everyone is trying to fight and get closer to him as quickly as possible,” he said. 20 minutes Norwegian Sondre Guttormsen, who jumped 5.90m in Albuquerque in early February. Even if, in the end, you fight for second place, you can’t say that it’s difficult to face him just because he is better. »
Maybe I’m a little stupid to say that, but I never fight for second place, continues Ernest Obiena. When I go to a meeting, I go there to win, even if I know that Mondo exists and that he will do something huge. Obviously it’s complicated to be in the same competition as the GOAT, with the best generation of pole vaulters in the world, but it motivates me and encourages me to give the best of myself. »
But all good intentions come up against a simple fact. To come and fight with the Swede, you have to take a stratospheric jump, which few pole vaulters are able to do. “If there is a possibility of tickling him, you have to be there, develops Philippe Collet. The problem is that you can’t tickle it at 5.80, but at 6 m and more. And, there, there are not many who can play in his yard. Renaud Lavillenie, if he’s on his best day, Chris Nilsen and…” Yes, and not many others. “They don’t accept the principle, a priori, of being beaten, but they all know that, barring a miracle, an injury, Mondo must win”, continues Collet.
The same sentence as with Bubka?
Being the champion of the best pole vaulter in the world, the discipline has already experienced such a scenario, with Sergei Bubka, who jumped on everything that moved in the 1980s and 1990s and chained world records. “The difference between Mondo and Sergei is that Mondo still has a greater technical mastery of the pole vault than Sergei had, explains Philippe Collet, who scrapped with the Ukrainian. He was really above the potential level, but there was this technical flaw, which meant that he could miss, because he could “jump badly”. The problem is that Mondo doesn’t know how to jump badly. »
And since he doesn’t know how to “jump badly”, the fate of the competition remains frozen. To the point of making the discipline less attractive? “I don’t think he killed the sport,” said Obiena. It has surely made it a little more predictable, but above all it makes it much more visible. Seeing a guy trying for world records is not a normal thing, so seeing him do that so often, it necessarily highlights the pole vault. The Liévin meeting will thus be sold out to welcome the Swede, but also Karsten Warholm, Femke Bol or Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
“We trivialize a jump to 6.10 m”
Even if there is no suspense, Mondo manages to bring attention to this sport, and that’s great, continues Sondre Guttormsen. Now, you have to hope that some guys, whether it’s me or others, manage to get closer and closer to him and, sometimes, beat him. »
“At the time, when Sergei was there, we who were in front of him, we had the impression that he was breaking the discipline, that it made no sense, concludes Philippe Collet. However, it was a discipline that worked well, that people appreciated, and that did not kill the boom. It’s just that when they ask you how much you jump and you say 20 cm below Bubka’s, people don’t necessarily understand. Today, with Mondo, it completely trivializes jumps at 6m or 6.10. But it’s still an exceptional performance. “And what about the jump to 6.23 that the Swede will take out tonight.