Armand Duplantis (Lafayette, USA, 20 years old) closed the winter season this Sunday with a new attempt at a pole vault world record at the All Star Perche in Clermont-Ferrand. After being alone after over 6.01 meters, when the Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie and the American Sam Kendricks had fallen, Mondo, as he is affectionately known, made the entire Maison des Sports stand up, attacked the 6 times three times , 19 meters, he had more height but lacked speed in the whisk and fell on the bar. “I have lacked very little to get it but today everything has not gone 100%. The big goal now is Tokyo, ”says Duplantis, who competes with the Swedish flag, his mother's nationality. This winter he has broken the world record twice: on February 8 he jumped 6.17m in Torun (Poland) and seven days later he exceeded 6.18m in Glasgow. His teammates say he is unique and he says he is in the best shape of his life.
Question. From the Doha World Cup so far he has made an impressive qualitative leap. In Doha he was at the same level as Kendricks, he gold and you silver with 5.97m. What has led to this improvement?
Reply. This is my first year entirely as a professional, so I decided to take it differently from the previous ones. I have not made any radical changes, I am simply trying to improve a little every little detail. Now I am a little faster and stronger. It's crazy to think that in 2018 I was trying to break the junior world record and now ... I've improved on everything.
Q. It makes jumping 6.18m seem easy. Is that naturalness the result of having started at age three or do you think you were born with a gift?
R. It is everything. It is impossible to ignore the attributes with which I was born: I have a good height [1,81m], although when I was little I was short and did not know if I was going to grow much, I am fast and a good athlete. My father [Greg, a jigsaw who jumped 5,80m] was very strong and my mother [Helena, heptatleta] had incredible coordination and motor skills. I come from a deeply athletic family. When you are born having inherited this and you start jumping at age three and you fall in love with this sport ... That's it. My father says it was not his destiny to beat the record, but I think I can say it was mine.
Q. He says that when he got home from school, he would jump directly on the mat they had in his garden. Did you miss doing other activities or was the pole your only obsession, in a good way?
A. No. That is something that people confuse when we talk about my childhood. When I was little I played baseball in Louisiana, and also football. I never practiced other sports, but I did many other things with my friends. For me, it was never an obligation, it was a hobby, I liked it because I had so much fun. As other children play with the ball, I played with the pole. Obviously, my father taught me but he never told me when I had to practice.
Q. From now on, will you do like Bubka, go centimeter to centimeter, or will you go straight for 6.20?
A. I do not know ... You never know when you will find yourself in that state of form, whenever the necessary constellation is given I will try to go for another record but I will not think about whether I will attack 6.19m or 6.25m.
Q. In Glasgow, he jumped those 6.18m with a pole he had never used, harder even than the one he used in the Torun record. How do you bend a pole like that?
A. How you manage to bend longer and harder poles, and how you keep improving are very important factors. What distinguishes a good pertiguista from an extraordinary one is mentality. What allows me to use harder poles is the confidence that I can bend them. If you think you can, you do. Right now, I am very strong mentally, I feel I can achieve anything.
Q. You have learned a lot from the world leader Lavillenie, but you have developed your own technique and your colleagues say it is unique. Is it considered different?
A. We all do the same things, but everyone can adapt them with the variant that best suits their characteristics. I am faster and taller than Renaud [Lavillenie], but he is perhaps a little stronger. That makes our way of jumping different in certain aspects and it has to be that way. I knew I wasn't going to be as strong as Bubka, so why would I try to jump like him? I knew that my physical conditions would be different from Renaud's, so I can't jump exactly like him. What I did was find a way to jump more than them and find my limits. But what has helped me the most to train with Renaud is to see his competitive spirit, his mentality, he is a warrior ... There are good pertiguistas and great pertiguistas and the only difference between the two is the head.
Q. Has having been competing against the world record holder helped you mentally?
A. Absolutely. When you compete in World Cups against Lavillenie, with 17 years, you see how he does things, how he and Sam [Kendricks] manage to jump six meters ... They are the best and you learn from them, you see how they face things: mentality, preparation , Recovery. You appropriate their best qualities to develop their own style.
Q. And that special relationship between you can change now that you have broken your world record?
A. When I went to Glasgow a week ago I had made the first record. 15 days ago I had sprained an ankle and in Glasgow I had no physio or anyone to bandage my foot before the competition. Do you know who did it? Sam [Kendricks]. And then I beat the world record competing against him. Nothing has changed between the three of us [Kendricks, Lavillenie and him] and I believe that the friendship and ties that bind us will last forever.
Q. As I explained, they tell the pertiguistas not to look at the bar when they are going to jump because it can lead to technical errors. How do they face that height?
A. It is rather during the jump when you cannot look at the bar, although for me it has never been a problem. Obviously, when you are going to attack 6.18m it is difficult not to think about how high the bar is. You cannot be thinking about height, you have to know what you are doing and not let the brain begin to put obstacles and end up overwhelming you. The mind plays a fundamental role in the pole.
Q. What is your relationship with the pole?
A. I have many poles and every time I accumulate more. Whenever I come to Clermont Ferrand, I see the old poles Renaud has and how many he uses in training and I have changed the way I use them training. Now I do more like him and every time I have more.
Q. You will not keep them in your bedroom as some cyclists do with their bikes ...
A. They are too long, but if I could I would sleep with them.
P. In Spain they have come to compare with Mozart because, like geniuses, it makes the extraordinary something natural that does not cost you any effort ...
A. The good jumps yes, I feel that they cost me no effort. [LAUGHS] I don't know, I think I was born for the pole and every day that passes is easier for me.
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