Duplantis makes history again

For Wanda Diamond League champion Mondo Duplantis, breaking world records is fast becoming just another part of the job. 

The Swedish pole vault star cleared 6.22m in Clermont-Ferrand on Saturday to add one centimetre to his previous best and set a new world record for the sixth time in his young career. 

All six of those records have come in the last three years, a period in which Duplantis has also established an iron grip on the Diamond Trophy. 

The 23-year-old has notched up an astonishing total of 18 victories on athletics’ premier one-day circuit since 2020, cruising to the Wanda Diamond League title in both 2021 and 2022. 

Saturday’s world-record effort was the 60th time that Duplantis has cleared the six-metre mark, with 16 of those jumps coming on the Diamond League stage. 

Unsurprisingly, every one of those six-metre-plus jumps was also a meeting record, meaning Duplantis now holds the pole vault record in more than half of the Wanda Diamond League meetings. 

The Swede has also broken the Diamond League record three times since 2020. 

His first came in Lausanne back in 2020, when he cleared 6.07m to record the highest outdoor jump in 26 years. 

A few weeks later, he went even better, clearing 6.15m in Rome to become the greatest outdoor vaulter in history. 

Then, last season, he delighted his home crowd in Stockholm with 6.16m, a performance which foreshadowed his world record at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon the following month. 

Duplantis will be hoping to claim his third Diamond League title in 2023, an achievement which would move him within four titles of his old friend Renaud Lavillenie.

Lavillenie, who organises the Clermont Ferrand meet and was right there to congratulate Duplantis as he hit the mat on Saturday, is the most successful athlete in the series’ history with seven Diamond Trophies to his name. 

And while it may take at least another six years for Duplantis to break that record, few would bet against him doing so. 

Breaking records is, after all, just what Mondo Duplantis does.