Olympia 2021: Armand Duplantis wins gold and dominates the pole vault

That first attempt! Armand Duplantis winds over the bar, which is placed at a height of 6.19 meters, as lightly as only he can. He is already on the other side, his eyes wide open, ready to drop into the landing mat, when he lightly touches the bar with his upper body, it can only be seen in the slow-motion repetition.

The bar, it starts to wobble, looks lively: it almost seems to be wondering what to do. Then she decides to fall, and the next world record for the 21-year-old Swede has to wait a few more weeks.

The record, it was very close. It didn’t fall after all, but it was a show again, this performance by the new athletics superstar. By then, Duplantis had already secured the gold medal, and the competition cheered him on for his record attempt. They all stood in line and applauded him: Christopher Nilsen, the runner-up American, who jumped 5.97 meters in height and could at least provoke Duplantis a little. Defending champion Thiago Braz from Brazil, who secured bronze. And the two Germans Oleg Zernikel and Bo Kanda Lita Baehre, for whom 5.80 meters was too high that day. But above all, Renaud Lavillenie. The predecessor of Duplantis as the dominator of the scene, so to speak.

The now 34-year-old Frenchman knows what it’s like when you only compete alone at the end of the evening. Ten years ago he was the star, held the world records and celebrated the 2012 Olympic gold medal in London. The teenager Duplantis had a signed poster of Lavillenie on the wall at the time. He later said he wanted to fly like him. So the situation has changed.

Banged on the hard stadium floor

He would still be one of Duplantis’ biggest competitors, but that day the competition became his personal drama. Two weeks ago, Lavillenie had twisted her painfully during preparation, tearing the ligaments in her ankle. And now, on Tuesday in Tokyo, the Frenchman jumped in from a height of five meters instead of the soft mat on the hard stadium floor after he failed the jump during a trial.

Afterwards Lavillenie struggled through the competition, repeatedly talking to the coaches, also conversing repeatedly with Duplantis, in between fighting with tears of pain and disappointment. You hardly wanted to watch it.

Still, he tried his best. But apart from a successful jump over 5.70 meters nothing came out. Lavillenie came in eighth in the classification. In three years the Summer Games will be in Paris, in his homeland. Whether he will make it again at 37 is completely open.

Anyway, he should have been in top form that day to endanger Duplantis even remotely. Since the Swede’s other main rival, the world champion Sam Kendricks, had also dropped out as a competitor due to a positive corona test, there was not much to discuss about the gold medal anyway. It took Duplantis five jumps to get the longed-for gold, five times he climbed the heights in the first attempt, 5.55 – 5.80 – 5.92 – 5.97 – 6.02 meters, after which he was only left with the world record attempt .

Twenty times over the six meters

The son of a US father and a Swedish mother has already jumped over the 6-meter mark four times this season, or better: flown. He has already done this 20 times in total. In the indoor arena he already crossed 6.18 meters in Glasgow last year, which is an official world record also outdoors, where he has mastered 6.15 meters so far, also in the preseason in Rome. Five years ago at the age of 16 he showed up with the juniors and already destroyed one record after the other. Just two years later it was a skipped 5.90 meters. Lavillenie did this for the first time at 22, the legendary Sergej Bubka at 21. Duplantis at 18.