With Armand Duplantis, the question is never whether he’ll win but how high he’ll fly.
An event that started at 7pm fired to life a couple of hours later when Duplantis cleared 6.00m. Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis tried and failed to match him, as did America’s Sam Kendricks, earning bronze and silver respectively. Which just left the Mondo show.
After some brief hugs with his coach and family to celebrate gold, Duplantis strode across the track and set to work, first breaking the Olympic record of 6.03m set by Thiago Braz in 2016, though you suspect Braz had mentally released that one a while ago. Kendricks geed up the crowd as Duplantis glided over the bar with enough room for a beer belly.
The 24-year-old Swede had broken the world record eight times, pushing the limit of human possibility with a 17-foot tube one centimetre at a time. And here on a sultry night at the Stade de France, at 10.15pm, with the track races long finished and nobody moving an inch, he did it again.
After two failed attempts at a record 6.25m, he lay down on top of one of those foam back rollers we all have in a cupboard and never use, giving his body every possible chance of bending over the bar in one last try.
Then he was standing at the top of the runway with his pole resting on his shoulder. He took a couple of sharp breaths and muttered “come on” to himself. Then he ran, muscles straining, hair trailing in the wind like Tarzan. He slid his pole into the box and launched into the air in one smooth motion, contorting his body into a perfect right-angle before whipping his arm away from contact. The bar never moved.
He was celebrating before gravity had thrown him onto the mat. Then he was up, letting off a primal roar before rushing into the arms of his girlfriend, the Swedish model and TikTokker Desire Inglander. Abba’s Dancing Queen blared from the speakers as he embarked on a victory lap.
“I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling,” Duplantis said after the bedlam subsided. “I feel so grateful for how tonight played out. I didn’t let myself believe that I was Olympic champion until it was all done. I think it’s been such a fight to show up and to be at our best and do it when it matters.
“I feel so grateful for having this come together, a little bit of luck on our side, and being able to walk away on top. It’s just so special.”
Pole vault is ostensibly a silly endeavour, the only track and field event whose most Googled search terms are to ask who invented it and why. But it is also impressive sport and compelling art in equal measure. Essentially what happened here is that 80,000 people lost their minds as they watched a Swedish man clear the height of a large giraffe with nothing but a stick in his hands.
You can take your pick from his list of records and achievements. At 24, he is already a double Olympic champion, and a double world champion too. The top 10 clearances in history are all his. My personal favourite is that he hasn’t won silver or bronze since 2019. This was the apex of five years of unfettered dominance.
That made the expectation enormous, not just to win but to put on a show. Duplantis built an entire theatre.
“Pressure is becoming my friend. I think it’s one of those things I’ve learnt can bring out the best in you if you embrace it. I felt like I was really in the zone and just doing great, and I felt that so much in my prelim. And then tonight, I think on my first throw, I felt the weight of, ‘Holy crap, this is the Olympics’.
“It took me a minute to find my groove, but once my coach got me in a better headspace, and we just took it throw by throw, it felt like things were just clicking and that stadium filled with 80,000 people were just bringing out the best in all the athletes. I’m so grateful to embrace that and be part of such a historic night.”
