Mondo soars to career 11th world record

Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis soared 6.27m to set the 11th world pole vault record of his career at the All-Star Perche, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting, in Clermont-Ferrand on Friday 28 February.

In a record depth competition, the Olympic and world champion added another centimeter to the world record of 6.26m he set in Silesia in August.

He achieved his 6.27m clearance on his first attempt.

Emmanouil Karalis was second with a Greek record clearance of 6.02m as six men cleared 5.91m or higher for the first time in a single competition.

Duplantis had entered the contest at 5.65m and he cleared that height, 5.91m and 6.02m on his first attempts.

He won the competition by clearing 6.07m and then had the bar raised to 6.27m.

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The pole vaulter's successful clearance of that height means he has twice set a world record in Clermont-Ferrand. He soared 6.22m in the French city in 2023 for the sixth of his now 11 world records.

His first was 6.17m, which he achieved in Torun in 2020. The 25-year-old has also set world records during the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Indoor Championships and he will head to Nanjing on the hunt for a third consecutive world indoor title when the global event takes place on 21-23 March.

There he will be joined by Karalis, who added a centimeter to his Greek record when clearing 6.02m in Clermont-Ferrand. Like Duplantis, Olympic bronze medalist Karalis achieved his clearances at 5.65m, 5.85m, 5.91m, and 6.02m on his first attempts. He then had one unsuccessful try at 6.07m.

Four other athletes cleared 5.91m: Australia’s Kurtis Marschall, the French trio of Thibaut Collet, Baptiste Thiery, and former world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie.

The women’s competition was won by Switzerland’s European champion Angelica Moser. The Swiss record-holder, who finished fourth at the Paris Olympics, cleared 4.76m on her second attempt to win ahead of France’s Marie-Julie Bonnin and Italy’s Roberta Bruni, who both cleared 4.70m.

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