CNN
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Mondo Duplantis broke the pole vault world record for the 12th time in his career in front of a delighted home crowd in Stockholm, Sweden.
Duplantis cleared 6.28 meters on his first attempt to surpass his previous record by a centimeter, immediately running over to the stands to celebrate.
This was the first time that the 25-year-old had broken a world record in Sweden, saying afterwards that he felt “full to the brim” with the “special” achievement.
“I’ve got a lot of family here,” said Duplantis, who was raised in the United States but represents Sweden, his mother’s native country.
“The first time I jumped in this stadium was when I was 11,” he added. “It was rainy, cold, I jumped right under four meters. I still jumped quite high, actually, for how young I was.”
Duplantis first broke the pole vault world record in 2020 and over the years has steadily raised his own history-making standards a centimeter at a time.
At Sunday’s Diamond League meet, he had victory wrapped up with a first-time clearance of six meters, then put the bar straight up to 6.28m – well clear of his own meet record of 6.16m.
Despite grazing the bar on the way up, Duplantis safely cleared the record height and raced over to the stands to celebrate with his fiancée.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist is now unbeaten since July 2023, winning the Stockholm meet by 38 centimeters more than Australia’s Kurtis Marschall in second.
“It gets a little bit tougher as it gets higher,” said Duplantis about the prospect of clearing 6.30m in the future. “I’m just a perfect day away from it, technically and physically and everything like that.”
