Mondo Duplantis broke the men’s pole vault world record for a 15th time, but it was his first time doing it at the Mondo Classic, the competition named after him held at his Swedish base in Uppsala.
Duplantis, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, cleared 6.31 meters (20 feet, 8 1/4 inches) on his first attempt at the indoor pole vault-only meet.
“This competition of course, naturally, since I put my name on it, is the most high-pressured and important competition, basically, of the whole year for me,” Duplantis said before the event.
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Duplantis has won 38 competitions in a row since August 2023, breaking the world record nine times in that stretch alone, including on his third and final attempt at the Paris Olympics and at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.
He broke the world record for the first time in February 2020.
Duplantis chose to increase the world record by the minimum one centimeter for all 15 of his successful attempts.
It’s the same record-breaking strategy used by Ukrainian Sergey Bubka, who maximized bonus money by raising the bar one centimeter at a time on many occasions in the 1980s and ‘90s.
Bubka broke the outdoor world record 17 times and the indoor world record 18 times between 1984 and 1994, before World Athletics shifted to one world record combining indoor and outdoor.
Before Duplantis, the world record was 6.16 meters, set by Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie in 2014.
Duplantis was born and raised in Louisiana. He represents Sweden, his mother’s native country.
He is expected to compete at the World Indoor Championships from March 20-22, airing on Peacock, from Torun, Poland, site of his first world record in February 2020.
Duplantis can win a ninth consecutive global title dating to 2021 when including the World Indoor Championships, World Outdoor Championships and Olympics.
