Duplantis soars high in Laussanne

With the spotlight on the pole vault, Mondo Duplantis made the most of the dedicated lakeside city centre stage to improve the meeting record to 6.10m at a street event held on the eve of the main Athletissima programme in Lausanne on Thursday (25).

Taking his career total of six metre-plus clearances to 53, the Olympic champion soared over 6.00m on his third attempt before having the bar raised to 6.10m and also clearing that on his third try.

Among those in the crowd was pole vault great Sergey Bubka, whose record of six metre-plus results Duplantis surpassed in July, when the 22-year-old improved his own world record to 6.21m to win the world title. Bubka is the only other athlete to have achieved a 6.10m clearance outdoors, with an outdoor best of 6.14m set in 1994.

“It still feels quite amazing, especially on those third attempts – you never know what can happen on the third attempt, so those always really get the juices flowing,” Duplantis said. “Six metres, it’s still very special.”

The Swedish star entered the competition at 5.60m and cleared that, 5.80m and 5.90m on his first attempts. He had the contest won at that point, with USA’s Olympic and world silver medalist Chris Nilsen finishing second on 5.80m and Philippines’ world bronze medalist Ernest John Obiena placing third on countback.

“I was pretty tired, I wish I could have made 6.00m and 6.10m on my first attempts but I took all three attempts to make both of them,” said Duplantis, who next competes in Brussels on 2 September, on his way to the Diamond League final in Zurich.

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On the street event experience, he added: “It is a different type of energy and you get a bit more interaction with everybody, they are so close to you. For us, it’s overall more fun, and I think for the fans they get a better appreciation because they can really see up close what we do and how amazing the pole vault is.”

Athletissima action continues on Friday, with the men's triple jump kicking off the Diamond League programme at 6:20pm local time.

 © World Athletics