PHOTO: Bildbyrån
Armand Duplantis once again had a great showing on Sunday night.
When the world’s best pole vaulter once again won overwhelmingly.
But he also managed to confuse everyone there – even his own girlfriend Desiré Inglander.
Sunday night’s Diamond League competition in Stockholm got into big trouble when heavy rain took over everything. The men’s pole vault was a full two hours late for the world star Armand Duplantis major irritation.
Duplanti’s gesture
But that still didn’t stop him from putting on another display in pole vaulting. “Mondo” easily flew over 6.05 meters by a wide margin and won the competition with ease before raising the bar to a new world record height.
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Before the jump of 6.23 m, the most unexpected happened. Throughout the evening, Duplantis had competed with just his last name on the number tag on his back, but now he suddenly changed his number tag and instead jumped with “Mondo” written on his back.
READ MORE: Armand Duplantis reveals great anger during the competition in Sweden – forced to act: “Could have died”
Desiré surprised
Which got many people on the spot and also the girlfriend Desire Inglander to react.
– I have never seen him compete in a nameplate with “Mondo” before. It’s a bit crazy, she tells SportExpressen.
– I don’t know why he actually changed.
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Even mother Helena Duplantis and the 23-year-old’s agent Daniel Wessfeldt were really confused by the unexpected change of the number plates.
– I have never seen such a change before, admits the duo who were also present at Stockholm’s stadium.
READ MORE: Daniel Ståhl’s big life decision – the Swedish hero’s honest words about the change: “Shocking”
Mondo explains
Unfortunately, Duplantis broke all of his attempts at the new world record height and explains after the competition what actually happened with the number plates.
– The one I had was too wet and was about to come off, he says to the evening newspaper and admits that the name change was not at all something he thought about, but that it happened by chance.
– I didn’t know that I actually had different number plates. It wasn’t a message or anything, haha.
It is actually perfectly fine not to have the last name on the number tags during the athletics competitions. In the past, the Norwegian has Jakob Ingebrigtsen competed with only “Jakob” on the number tag on the back.
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