Armand Duplantis, 24, said that defending his Olympic gold medal in the pole vault, by breaking the world record, was no surprise, as he had imagined this moment “a million times” when he was training as a child in his garden. Trained by his father, Greg, a former American pole vaulter, Duplantis is the product of a family with a passion for athletics, who installed their own vaulting equipment in the garden of their home.
All his family were present at the stadium, and Duplantis spoke to them after clearing 6.25 metres, without “repeated gestures”.
This new record surpasses the previous one by one centimetre, in front of a delirious crowd of 69,000 at the Stade de France on Monday evening.
“I’ve been lucky enough to do it several times, but it’s always the same thing. This time it was more extreme. When I step over the bar, I feel like an AI (artificial intelligence), I don’t feel like I’m real. It was more hysteria and panic.”