BELGRADE, Serbia — Olympic champion Armand Mondo Duplantis cleared 6.20 meters to break his own world pole vault record at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade22 on Sunday.
The Swede had to wait a long while for the conclusion of the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay races, but not even the delay could deny his moment to rewrite history again after he soared over the new world record on his third and final attempt at the height.
His remarkable effort on Sunday came inside the same arena in which he had set the previous world record of 6.19m at the pre-championship meeting in Belgrade on March 7. Read more: Day 3 Results: World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22
“I feel like Belgrade is going to be a special place in my heart forever,” Duplantis said.
Sunday’s 6.20m milestone mark now means Duplantis has set four world records in the pole vault in the last two years, following his 6.17m effort in Torun in February 2020, which he eclipsed one week later in Glasgow with 6.18m and then the 6.19m in Belgrade two weeks ago.
The 22-year-old knows that he’s still a long way off the production of Sergey Bubka, who broke the pole vault world indoor record 18 times and the outdoor world record 17 times during his career, but he still has his sight well set on doing what he can to help improve the sport.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Brazil’s Rio 2016 Olympic Games champion Thiago Braz cleared 5.95m for the silver and collected his first global championships indoor medal, while the bronze medal went to American Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Chris Nilsen with 5.90m.
It was the second world record performance in the afternoon session after American Grant Holloway had equaled his own 60m hurdles world record with a time of 7.29 seconds in the semi-final.
The two records were an addition to the 15.74m sensational jump by Olympic champion Yulimar Rojas to win the women’s triple jump competition in the morning session.
