When you already have it all, what is there left to aim for?
It’s a question which Mondo Duplantis has faced time and again in recent years, as he has pushed the pole vault to previously unthinkable new heights.
Since 2020, Duplantis has broken the world record 14 times, won two Olympic gold medals, been crowned world champion three times both indoors and outdoors, and won the Diamond League title in five successive seasons.
Yet in 2025, he still managed to tick one more new thing off his pole vault bucket list: a world record at his home Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.
Expectations of a world record are always high when Duplantis hits the runway, with the Swede having broken at least one in each of the last three Diamond League seasons.
Yet prior to last June, the Swedish superstar had never managed to break one in front of his home crowd at the 1912 Olympic Stadium.
Duplantis had enjoyed some memorable moments in Stockholm, most notably his 6.16m jump in 2022, which was then a Diamond League record and the highest outdoor jump in history.
He had also never lost at the BAUHAUS-Galan, having won every single one of his Diamond League appearances in Stockholm since his first jump there back in 2018.
Yet amid some of the trickiest conditions the Diamond League had to offer, the Swedish star had always fallen short of the world record.
Not so in 2025, as Duplantis took advantage of some splendid summer weather to deliver one of the most memorable performances in his highlight-packed career.
He won the competition without breaking a sweat, reaching the winning 6.00m mark in just four jumps before turning his attention to the world record of 6.28m.
As he sailed over the bar at the first attempt, even Duplantis himself looked stunned. Another career milestone in the bag, he charged around the Stockholm track in triumph, just as he had done three years earlier.
“I wanted this so bad. I wanted to do this in front of in front of everybody here in Stockholm, all my Swedes. It felt like really something special in the crowd today, and I knew that everybody really wanted to see it,” he said.
“I kept saying that it was the only thing that I was missing in the accolades: to break a record here in Sweden. I wanted it really badly, so I guess I’ve checked off pretty much everything now!”
He was wrong about that. Over the course of the next few months, Duplantis would break the record twice more and grab another Diamond Trophy and World Championships gold medal for his bulging trophy cabinet.
There are still more records to be broken meanwhile. With five Diamond League titles in the bag, the Swede is now just two away from equalling the all-time record held by his friend and rival Renaud Lavillenie.
Yet whatever the future holds, Duplantis will always have Stockholm, and a Diamond League world record which, on a personal level at least, might just have been his best ever.
