Mondo Duplantis, former LSU star, breaks pole vault world record

Mondo Duplantis, a former LSU All-American, reached a personal milestone and set a world record when he won the gold medal on Sunday night at the world championships in Eugene, Oregon.

Duplantis, the silver medalist at the 2019 world championships, claimed the gold at his second world championships to go with the gold he won at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. Duplantis, who represented his mother’s home country of Sweden, broke his own world record when he cleared 20 feet, 4½ inches on his second attempt at Hayward Field. It beat his own previous world record of 20-4 set in March in Belgrade, Serbia. It was the fifth time Duplantis had broken the pole vault world record, which dates back to February 2020.

Duplantis is a native of Lafayette, Louisiana.

Mondo Duplantis. World Record. We Are All Witnesses. pic.twitter.com/pDVkuyBZ3K

— LSU Track & Field (@LSUTrackField) July 25, 2022

Duplantis said he didn’t think much about the world record during the competition, intent instead on bringing home the gold, Oregon Live reported.

“Usually, it is always somewhere in the back of my mind, but today, I was really focused on the win and I really wanted to win the gold so badly,” Duplantis said. “It was the medal I was missing.”

Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.