World football has a Messitennis has a Djokovic –both already in the equally fabulous twilight of their campaigns- and athletics has a Duplantis. “Mondo” Duplantis is Usain Bolt’s heir in the massive calls for his sport, as was exhibited yesterday before a surrendered Stade de France when he added a world record to his assured gold medal. It is a ticket that is seen less and less and is worth more and more in top-level athletics.
Of course, athletics is a varied sport between the different phases of running, jumping or throwing, but if Few will be able to rival Duplantis in the combination of his technical quality, charisma and competitor mentality..
Given the superiority he exercised over his rivals, it now remains to know to what extent he will take his specialty, pole vaulting, one of the most spectacular of all athletic programming.
This jump has been on the Olympic agenda since the restoration of the Games in Athens 1896 (she is one of the 13 “survivors”). Athletes from the United States exercised absolute dominance, winning 19 of the 31 editions held so far and were unbeatable until Munich 1972, when an East German, Wolfgang Nordwing, was able to triumph.
And in more than a century, only one man before Duplantis was able to triumph twice in the Games: Bob Richards who, after his bronze medal in London 48, won the following two editions (Helsinki 52, Melbourne 56). Richards was a Protestant pastor who, in the midst of his Olympic triumphs, also passed through Buenos Aires as he won the inaugural edition of the Pan American Games in 1951. Upon his retirement from sports he became quite a popular man in his country, not only because of his religious preaching but because of the advertising he did for dietary products… but he ended up as a candidate for right-wing extremism – he was a candidate for the presidency in the 80s – and died last year, at 97 years old.
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He achieved a record of 6.23 meters and beat his own mark by one centimeter.
Pole vaulting, meanwhile, had produced a technical revolution since the 60s. First, with the introduction of fiberglass poles, the well-known “fiber glass”, instead of the rudimentary aluminum that was used until then. And along with the changes in elements, the accelerated change in jumping techniques and physical preparation also gave rise to several generations of very gifted jumpers, mostly from artistic gymnastics.
The greatest exponent was Sergey Bubkaa Ukrainian who can be considered – until the advent of Duplantis – as the greatest pole vaulter in history. He was the first to reach and overcome the 6 meter barrier, which until recently was considered inaccessible. He won the outdoor world title five consecutive times (which at first was held every four years) and broke the world record 35 times! (Of course it seemed simple for him and he moved it at will, centimeter by centimeter). But since he left the sport at the age of 35, It would be two decades before other athletes approached the bar he had set so high..
Perhaps the unfinished business – not entirely – for Bubka was the Olympic Games. He could not attend Los Angeles 84 due to the boycott of the USSR and the countries of the socialist area. In Seoul 88 he got his long-awaited gold medal, suffering until the end against his teammate Rodion Gataulin. And in Barcelona 92… it was surprisingly blank at the initial height.
For some time now, the International Federation (World Athletics) decided to unify world records in jumping and throwing events, whether achieved indoors or outdoors. Previously, they were separate tables. The absolute mark that Bubka left was 6.15 meters, in 1993, and was only broken by Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie in 2014..
Duplantis appeared and not only did he inherit all of those titles – Olympic, world outdoor and indoor, European – but he already broke the world record nine timesstarting with 6.17 on February 18, 2020 in Torun and reaching 6.25 yesterday, which does not seem to be its limit.
Duplantis has all the physical and technical attributes to be an exceptional pole vaulter, but it comes from the cradle. His father, Greg, was an outstanding specialist (5.80 meters in the 1980s) and his mother, Helena Hedlund, also excelled as a combined event athlete, collecting more than 5,300 points in the heptathlon. And at the same time, Helena’s father was an instructor at an athletics club in Sweden… “Mondo’s” three brothers are federated athletes and the boy – he was barely three years old – had a slide installed so he could start pole vaulting. .
Duplantis was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and at some point had to decide whether to represent him: the United States or Sweden. His election was quick and since then he has triumphantly paraded Sweden’s colors throughout the athletic world. Invincible.