Eugene, 5th July 25 (BUS): Sweden’s Armand Duplantis broke his world pole vault record by jumping 6.21 meters on Sunday en route to winning his first world championship gold.
The Olympic champion cleared 6.00m to confirm the title, before setting his sights on his record 6.20m he set at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade earlier this year and a 1cm improvement on his second attempt, Reuters reported.
The world title completes the 22-year-old’s squad, making him the first pole vaulter to win gold at the Olympics, World Championships, World Indoor Championships, World Junior Championships, World Youth Championships and European Championships.
“Actually, I didn’t think about the record much today,” Duplantis said. “Usually it’s always somewhere in the back of my mind but today I was really focused on winning and really wanted to win the gold so badly. It was the one I’m missing.
“So when I was at that altitude, it was like it all came together and it happened from there. I love jumping in Eugene and it’s been great here.”
Duplantis made two attempts at 5.87m before easily running 6.00m and 6.06m to beat Dmitriy Markov’s 6.05m championship mark recorded in Edmonton in 2001.
He then raised the bar to 6.21 metres, where he failed on his first attempt but rose to the world record in the second.
It was the third time this year that Duplantis set a world record and his fifth jump overall after breaking France’s Renaud Lavillenie’s 6.16m world record by skipping 6.17m in February 2020.
American Chris Nielsen jumped 5.94 meters to take the silver medal in the countdown ahead of the Philippines’ Ernest John Obiena, who won his country’s first medal at the world championships.
“It was something I really wanted but I don’t know if I was expecting,” said Obiena. “I definitely wasn’t expecting to jump that high. I don’t think it would actually take that high to win a medal.”