Armand Duplantis Breaks the Pole Vault World Record

“I can’t say that wasn’t in the back of my mind,” Greg Duplantis, Mondo’s father and coach, said on Saturday in a telephone interview from Lafayette, La. “Every time, there’s a disaster or someone comes up that no one knows about.”

Greg Duplantis, who was an All-American pole-vaulter at L.S.U., said most people he had encountered had been fine with Mondo’s decision, though “you get a few disgruntled people.”

“I’m expecting some backlash for the Olympics,” he said. “I don’t quite get it. He’s following in his mom’s footsteps. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that.”

Sam Kendricks of Oxford, Miss., the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist and a two-time world champion, told The New York Times in 2017 that Mondo Duplantis’s decision was a “very professional way of looking at it.”

“I know a lot of people are going to say, ‘Why don’t you compete for the United States?’” Kendricks said. “But that’s not the point of it for him. The point is to jump high and elevate the sport.”

On Saturday, Duplantis told the website of track’s world governing body that the record was “something that I wanted since I was 3 years old. It’s a big year, but it’s a good way to start it.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/sports/olympics/mondo-duplantis-sweden-world-record.html?emc=rss&partner=rss