Armand Duplantis once again proved he is the best in business when it comes to pole vault as the Swede broke his own world record with a jump of 6.21m on Sunday en route to his first-ever World Athletics Championships gold. (More Sports News)
The Tokyo Olympics champion first cleared 6.00m to confirm the title before setting a championships record of 6.06m. By doing so, he surpasses Dmitri Markov’s mark of 6.05m set in Edmonton in 2001.
But that wasn’t all. The 22-year-old then had the bar moved 21 centimetres higher and finished off in sensational style. Duplantis’ previous record came at the world indoors earlier this year. This is also the fifth time Duplantis improved the world record since February 2020.
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The last time an outdoor performance led to a world record was in 1994 when pole vault great Sergey Bubka soared over 6.14m. Duplantis wasn’t even born then. Duplantis has now also overtaken Bubka when it comes to career six metre-plus clearances, having managed that feat 48 times to Bubka’s 46.
“It was the medal I was missing,” said Duplantis to World Athletics. He also received a cheque of US$100,000 for clearing the championship record. “Usually, it (the world record) is always somewhere in the back of my mind, but today I was focused on the win.”
Local favourite and Olympic silver medallist Chris Nilsen had to settle with the second place after clearing 5.94m while Philippines’ Ernest John Obiena added a centimetre to his own Asian record to win bronze – the first ever World Championships medal for his nation.
