Born to Fly

August 6, 2024 5:48 AM

Armand "Mondo" Duplantis breaks own pole vault world record, vaulting a new world record height of 6.25m (20 ft 6 inches). He had earlier secured the gold medal and set a new Olympic record of 6.10m. Detailed analysis of his unorthodox technique (WaPo gift link).

Previously.

posted by needled (9 comments total)

I saw this “live” last night. It really is one of those things that makes you really appreciate the limits of human athleticism
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:59 AM on August 6 [5 favorites]

"And I owe it all to my relatively normal sized penis!"

(On the other hand, Anthony Ammirati now has one of the best pickup lines ever: "So, do you want to know why I don't have an Olympic gold medal?")
posted by Naberius at 7:08 AM on August 6 [5 favorites]

I was going to give that 24 hours before adding to the thread.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:36 AM on August 6 [1 favorite]

Is there any discussion in the sport to increase the length of the pole? From this lay-person's eyes, it looks like Duplantis has pretty well reached the furthering extent of propulsion from the pole -- the gap between the top of the bar and his hand placement, and the amount of upward force he has to generate, seems unreal.
posted by Silvery Fish at 11:25 AM on August 6

Pole length is entirely up to the vaulter, there's no limits, the question is the ability to control it. Same with stiffness, which is how you can add more potential power to the same length of pole. But still, the pole is secondary in itself, it's how efficiently you can use it to turn your foot speed into height, which is Duplantis' real secret -- he's faster than anyone else in pole vault on the runway, and strong enough to use poles that let him turn that into height.

What I'm wondering is if they are going to increase the height of the standards -- the bar can't go that much higher on the current ones.
posted by tavella at 12:33 PM on August 6 [2 favorites]

He increments the bar up one centimeter each time because he gets a bonus every time he breaks a world record. If you can get a bonus and a gold medal for incrementing up 1cm, why do 5cm?
posted by rednikki at 2:13 PM on August 6 [1 favorite]

I think that is overestimated. Famously Sergey Bubka would only attempt a new record at a meet if the bonus offered for it was to his liking. Duplantis goes for a new record at every meet he wins (which is, well, almost all of them), unless the weather conditions are too poor or he is tired/injured. It's just that everything needs to be nearly perfect, and thus he only hits it just right a couple of times a year -- note that he failed on two tries before his record jump. If it's very difficult to jump even 1cm higher, there's no reason to make it even more difficult by going 2cm or more at a time.

To get an idea of how rarefied the air he is jumping in is, only three people have ever jumped over 6.08 meters, and one of them only did it a single time. Bubka did it 12 times. Duplantis has done it 21 times, and he's only 24. When he paused to set the Olympic record first before trying for the world, he didn't have them set the standard to 6.05, which would have broken the 6.03 record, he had them put it to 6.10, because 6.10 is just an ordinary jump to him, one he can be confident in making when he's jumping well. There's only six other vaulters who have ever done 6.05 or above, apart from Bubka and Lavillenie. Duplantis starts where the best leave off.
posted by tavella at 2:48 PM on August 6 [4 favorites]

Well, I'll be. A flying Cajun!
Taking after his pops and mom.
posted by eustatic at 9:49 PM on August 6

He set one of his world records in Glasgow in 2019, at the European Indoor Champs, and I was in the other room and missed it *face palm* (tbf, I was working, but had sat myself in the media room to do a bit of work and PV goes on for a long time, and I just lost track of what was happening in the arena). I've forgiven him, though...
posted by penguin pie at 2:12 AM on August 7 [2 favorites]