Six years ago, Mondo Duplantis — still known then to many by his full first name of Armand — broke the pole vault world record for the first time at an indoor meet in the river-hugging city of Toruń, Poland.
He went to Toruń three months removed from his 20th birthday, less than a year removed from turning professional after his freshman year at LSU and as a junior world champion.
This week, the Louisiana-raised Swede returns to the same Kujawsko-Pomorska Arena for the World Indoor Track and Field Championships as one of the most recognizable athletes in international sport.
Duplantis has since broken the world record 14 more times — increasing the height by the minimum one centimeter each time, which maximizes bonus money potential — the feats registered by the raising of a bar next to a 43-foot-tall horse statue in his mom’s hometown of Avesta, Sweden.
Over the six-year world record spree, he also claimed two Olympic gold medals (including a world record at the 2024 Paris Games), won a Laureus World Sports award and racked up a 38-meet win streak dating to 2023.
His most recent world record — set last Thursday — was done at a meet bearing his name: the Mondo Classic in Uppsala, Sweden.
It was around that time last week that Duplantis reminisced about his first world record with Sam Kendricks. Kendricks, from Oxford, Mississippi, was the world champion in 2017 and 2019, a time that can now be called the tail end of the pre-Mondo era.
Kendricks, who is seven years older than Duplantis, jokingly called himself “the world’s greatest loser” for a time starting around the 2020 world record when he began to regularly finish behind Duplantis. To get a sense of their friendship, Duplantis was the one responsible for a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen delivery to Kendricks in the wee hours at the Paris Olympics, where they went one-two.
Back to Duplantis’ story from that first world record in 2020 in Toruń. He shared with Kendricks that it was a tip from another pole vaulter, 2015 World champion Shawn Barber from Canada, who helped him get over the bar.
“He thought I should raise my grip a little bit, and I trusted it,” Duplantis said of Barber, who died in 2024 at age 29 from medical complications. “Then I was able to make it (the world record on my second attempt). So that’s actually quite special.”
Duplantis cleared 6.17 meters — or 20 feet and nearly 3 inches — to break Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie’s world record from 2014.
In further testament to the pole vaulting fraternity, Lavillenie texted Duplantis on the morning of the 2020 Toruń meet to “have a good day baby, but not too good,” according to World Athletics.
“It’s a very life-changing moment,” Duplantis reflected on that day, “going from, in one instance, being not the world record holder to the world record holder, which is one of my biggest childhood dreams.”
Duplantis can still recall the song that played when he broke the world record for the first time — “Levels” by Avicii — which he said also played for Lavillenie’s record and is the “pole vault world record anthem.”
Duplantis also jumps to his own songs.
“It makes it feel like, almost a little bit, like I’m in my backyard again,” he said, referencing learning to pole vault behind his family home in Lafayette, Louisiana.
While the first world record was obviously special, the most recent could be a sign of many more to come. He cleared 6.31 meters last Thursday with a stiffer pole that he hadn’t used in about four years and, more importantly, by adding two steps to his traditional 20-step run-up.
“I haven’t made a change of that (approach) since 2019, so it’s been seven years or so where I’ve had basically the same approach and whatnot,” he said. “So that’ll be fun to play around with and see where that can take me.”
With every record, Duplantis gets closer to the feats of Ukrainian Sergey Bubka.
Bubka, the 1988 Olympic gold medalist who shared a building facade with Michael Jordan at the 1992 Barcelona Games, 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.
In all, Bubka increased the combined world record by 30 centimeters. Duplantis is halfway to that total, not that he’s keeping track.
“I’ve never been so much of a numbers guy,” he said when asked about trying to match Bubka’s total. “I’m not very analytical, so I don’t get super attached, or have any relations to numbers, really, just in general. Probably just don’t have the brain to even comprehend it, maybe that’s why.”
One pole vaulter that is definitely on his mind is Olympic bronze medalist Emmanouil “Manolo” Karalis of Greece, who is in the World Indoor Championships field.
Karalis, who was born 21 days before Duplantis, cleared 6.17 meters on Feb. 28, becoming the second-highest vaulter in history.
Duplantis learned of the jump from a text from Lavillenie, whom Karalis pushed down to No. 3 in history.
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t fire me up a little bit and put some fire under my ass,” Duplantis said while riding in the passenger seat of a car driven by another pole vaulter, world bronze medalist Kurtis Marschall of Australia. “I wanted to make sure that I can keep up with everybody and make sure I’m still the top dog.”
In a hypothetical, Karalis was asked last week if he’d be unhappy to jump 6.25 meters, but lose a competition.
“No, no, no,” he said. “It will not matter how many medals I had. The only thing that I will care, hopefully, is all these memories that I had, that I pushed myself to the limits, the relationships that I had. Because at the end of the day, medals, they will go into the drawer when we’ll be done.
“Whoever jumps higher, we’re all going to celebrate.”
As for Duplantis, he pointed out a jump that came before all of the world records. In 2018, he cleared six meters for the first time en route to winning the European Championships in Berlin a few months after graduating from Lafayette High School.
“I probably never have ever had a feeling like that ever again in my life,” he said. “I mean, maybe the Olympics, but even then, there was something that was really, really special about (2018 Euros), especially just everything coming together, being my first time over six and winning the European champs and having not even turned 19 yet.”
