Armand Duplantis

Armand Gustav "Mondo" Duplantis (born 10 November 1999) is a Swedish-American pole vaulter, the current world outdoor and indoor record holder (6.23m and 6.22m), the current Olympic and two time World outdoor (2022 and 2023) and two-time indoor champion, the current European champion, and the current Diamond League champion.

His two older brothers, Andreas and Antoine, and his younger sister, Johanna, also took up sports; Andreas represented Sweden as a pole vaulter at the 2009 World Youth Championships and 2012 World Junior Championships, while Antoine dropped pole vault for baseball in high school before heading to Louisiana State University where he became the team's career hits leader in 2019.

While growing up in an English-speaking household, Duplantis learned adequate Swedish as his second language.

Duplantis won title as a 15-year-old at the 2015 World Youth Championships.

A year later, he placed third at the World U20 Championships.

, he holds the world best in all age groups from age seven to age 12; he held the age 13 record until it was broken in May 2015.

In 2015, his freshman year at Lafayette High School, Duplantis set national freshman records both indoors and outdoors and was named Gatorade Louisiana Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year.

As a citizen of both the United States and Sweden, Duplantis could have chosen to vault for either country internationally; in June 2015 it was announced that he had selected Sweden.

Duplantis represented Sweden for the first time at the 2015 World Youth Championships in Cali, Colombia; he won gold on countback with a first-attempt clearance of 5.30 m (17 ft 4 1⁄2 in), improving his personal best by two centimeters and setting a new championship record.

Duplantis cleared 5.49m at a high school meet in Baton Rouge on 6 February 2016, setting a new age-16 world best, world indoor youth best and national high school indoor record; he was the first high school athlete to vault 18 feet indoors.

Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, the same age as Duplantis, broke his world marks with a 5.53m vault only one week later.

In 2017, he took the European U20 title, and the following year, World U20 title.

Duplantis is also a three-time Diamond League champion.

On 11 February 2017, at the Millrose Games, Duplantis jumped 5.75m to set the world indoor junior record.

That mark was ratified by IAAF.

A month later he improved to 5.82m in the same facility at the New Balance National Scholastic Championships.

That mark was not ratified due to incorrect peg lengths being used.

On 1 April 2017, Duplantis jumped 5.90 m at the Nike Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, improving his personal record and setting a new World Junior Record.

The jump also became a Swedish senior record by 3cm.

While the IAAF recognized the record with Duplantis representing Sweden, on 2 December 2017, USATF also ratified Duplantis' mark as the American junior record.

Duplantis is a two-time European champion from 2018, when he set current world under-20 record, and from 2022.

Indoors, he is 2022 World Indoor Championship and 2021 European Indoor Championship gold medallist.

Both European and World Athletics Male Rising Star of the Year in 2018, two years later he was voted World Male Athlete of the Year.

For his 2022 season, which saw him breaking world records three times, becoming World outdoor and indoor champion, European and Diamond League champion, and clearing six-metre-plus 22 times, Duplantis was crowned both European and World Male Athlete of the Year.

As of February 2023, he has cleared six metres or higher 60 times, the most of any athlete in history.

Duplantis was born into an athletic family in Lafayette, Louisiana.

His American father, Greg Duplantis, who is of Cajun descent, is a former pole vaulter with a personal best of 5.80m, while his Swedish mother Helena (née Hedlund) is a former heptathlete and volleyball player.

Duplantis began his 2018 season by improving upon the world indoor junior record by jumping 5.83m at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada.

He later bettered his indoor record with 5.88m and reached 6.05m at the 2018 European Athletics Championships.

The 6.05 m vault ranked him tied as the fifth-best pole vaulter in history and tied for the second-best outdoors.

He won the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships.

Encouraged by his mother, Duplantis took extensive lessons over Skype in order to improve his fluency and by 2020 he felt that he understood native, and faster, speech much better than he had done in the past.

His mother claimed at the same time that while Duplantis felt shy about speaking Swedish in public, he was very happy to do so in private, where there was less pressure.

By 2021, after winning the Olympic gold, his knowledge of the language had improved to the point that he felt comfortable doing full Swedish-speaking interviews.

In the past, Duplantis has lamented that improving his Swedish has been somewhat hampered by the high level of English skills in Sweden, which has led to native speakers preferring to speak English when talking with him.

After winning the Jerringpriset as the most popular athlete in Sweden in 2020, Duplantis expressed relief that the Swedish public had accepted and embraced him.

During said Olympics, Duplantis also stated that his older brother having great experiences representing Sweden at a youth level and his love for Sweden as a child made his choice very easy but that he also feels a strong bond to Lafayette.

Duplantis usually divides his year between winters in Louisiana and summers in Uppsala in Sweden, adapted for when the two climates offer the best possibilities for training.

With Duplantis' mother Helena being raised in Avesta, the municipality raised a pole vault bar beside the gigantic Dala horse monument to showcase the height of his world record, something that made Duplantis "break down in tears" over the significance of what he had accomplished when he heard about it.

Duplantis first tried pole vaulting as a three-year-old at the family's home in Lafayette, Louisiana, and took to the event rapidly; he set his first age group world best at age seven, and his jump of 3.86m as a 10-year-old surpassed the previous world bests for ages 11 and 12 as well.