Record-Breaking Pole Vaulter Armand Duplantis Sets Meet Record in In Season-Opener at ISTAF Indoor

Record-breaking pole vaulter Armand Duplantis has set a new meeting record on his return from a winter break by clearing 6.10 meters at the season-opening ISTAF Indoor meet in Berlin on Friday (February 14).

The Swedish star attempted to beat his own world outdoor record set in Chorzow, Poland last August with two attempts at 6.27, but it was too high this time for the 25-year-old who broke the outdoor record three times last year.

The second time was when he won his second Olympic gold medal with a record jump of 6.25 in Paris. He extended the world outdoor record by a centimeter to 6.26 in Poland on August 25.

Duplantis, who has been on a record-breaking spree since 2020, needed two attempts to clear 6.10, putting it down to "rust" in his first competition since September. It's the best indoor mark so far this year.

"It was a good season-opener," Duplantis said. "Of course, your first competition, there's always a little bit of rust that you kinda have to knock off, but I think the energy of everybody here really really helped me."

The meet at the 12,000-capacity arena beside the Spree River was a sell-out, and Duplantis was cheered on by, it seemed, everyone at each attempt. The Swede reflected on how the atmosphere has helped him.

"I try to channel the energy that everybody's giving me as much as I can, but at the end of the day, you don't really think about it," he said.

"You're just trying to make the bar and you're trying to keep it as simple as possible. But of course, you feel it. You feel the energy. You feel everybody. You feel the crowd and the roar and everything like that. And it's very important. It gives you a lot."

Duplantis, widely known as "Mondo," has broken the world outdoor record 10 times in his career - each time by one centimeter - and the world indoor record five times. The 25-year-old first broke the Olympic record held by Brazil's Thiago, who had cleared 6.03m in Rio 2016.

French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie had held the pole vault record which he set in 2014 with a 6.16m jump. But, then arrived Duplantis, who has been blowing away records for fun since February 2020.