World Athletics Indoor Championships: Olympic and world champion Armand Duplantis made a successful defence of his pole vault title at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, clearing a world-leading 6.05m.
Having skipped at 5.75m, Duplantis returned to the fray after a period of almost 20 minutes and he seemed to have lost his focus as failing twice to clear at 5.85.
He found the way to progress, however. A first failure at 5.95m created another pressure point for him to negotiate – but he responded like the champion in his second effort, marking the clearance with a surge of energy.
Duplantis then raised the bar to 6.05m, which he cleared in the third attempt to rapturous applause.
The Swede’s old nemesis Sam Kendricks of the United States, the 2017 and 2019 world champion, Sam Kendricks took a silver, one place ahead of Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis, third on 5.85m and claiming his first major medal.
Duplantis had come into these championships atop the world rankings, although with a relatively conservative height of 6.02m, in contrast to the 6.10m with which he kicked off last year.
“I had my back against the wall quite a few times today and I’m glad I was able to pull it out on the third attempts. I was never negative about the fouls. It is always pressure on the last attempt because you are on the line but I always look at it positively. If I have one attempt left then I have a chance.
“I try not to overthink it and learn from the mistake I made on the first two and put it all together. I was able to pull it out of the bag today. I gave my mom too many scares tonight than she would have liked,” said Duplantis in his post-competition interview.
