Men's pole vault Wanda Diamond League champion Mondo Duplantis was named male World Athlete of the Year on Monday, after a season in which he not only picked up the Diamond Trophy and World Championship gold, but also broke his own Diamond League and world records.
Duplantis was crowned as the standout track and field star of 2022 alongside 400m hurdles star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a 2019 Diamond League champion who also broke the world record on more than one occasion in the course of the season.
"Going into the year, I had really high expectations of myself and I had some really big goals," said Duplantis. "I wanted to win the world indoors, the world outdoors, the Europeans, the Diamond League final, and I wanted to break the world record a few times.
"I was able to do that and it was a bonus, the cherry on top, to do be able to do it (break the world record) at the right times, to do it at world indoors and do it at world outdoors. I can’t complain."
After twice breaking his own world record in the indoor season, Duplantis became the first man to break the record outdoors since 1994 when he cleared 6.21m in the men's pole vault final at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in July.
He also successfully defended his Wanda Diamond League title, picking up five meeting records on his way to a second Diamond Trophy in two years, including a Diamond League record 6.16m in front of his home fans in Stockholm in June.