PHOTO: Bildbyrån & SVT
Their son is one of the world’s best track and field athletes right now.
Now Helena Duplantis and Greg Duplantis talk about how it all started.
– I think I was brainwashed, admits mother Duplantis in the TV program “Carina Bergfeldt”.
He is undoubtedly one of Sweden’s most popular athletes right now, but also a world star around other countries. Armand Duplantis is at the peak of his career right now and already at the age of 23 he has won everything there is to win.
Mondo’s success
The success story of “Mondo” is truly unique in sports Sweden and behind the great success are his dedicated parents Helena Duplantis and Greg Duplantis. Mostly the father but also the mother has been seen at competitions and championships to help the son reach even higher heights.
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Father Greg, from the USA, is himself an old pole vaulter and has drilled his son’s small children’s bones. While mother Helena, from Sweden, was involved in both athletics and volleyball.
READ MORE: The expert completely shocked by Armand Duplanti’s display – offers the incomparable tribute: “No doubt that…”
“Brainwashed”
Most people know enough that both of them met in the United States through athletics and settled in Lafayette, Louisiana, and then had Armand and his siblings. But now the couple talks about how they actually met.
– I think it was -86, says Helena when both are guests of the SVT program “Carina Bergfeldt” on Friday evening.
– It was a bit of “opposites attract” with us, he is totally… The personalities are completely different. But I think I was brainwashed. My mum and dad were visiting over Christmas and I was going to train. And she said, “That pole vaulting guy over there, he was super cute, wasn’t he? That would be something for you, huh?” But I didn’t think much more of it.
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Helena would then run into Greg once more in connection with athletics training and this time she was persuaded.
– Then I was in the US with a training buddy and then he said to me: “Do you see that little guy over there. It’s unbelievable, he told me he pole vaulted 5.50 in high school. And you know? He actually drives a BMW. And we’re in the US now so if he asks you out, you don’t have to pay. You should go out with him!”, she says on the talk show.
READ MORE: The viewers’ rage against SVT – the strange blunder with father Greg in the middle of the record jump: “It was a shame…”
Then the presenter turns Carina Bergfeldt to Greg Duplantis and asks why he fell for Helena.
– We are very different. But she has blond hair, blue eyes and long, beautiful legs, says father Duplantis in a very American way.
There and then love arose and over 35 years later they have given birth to and raised the world’s currently best pole vaulter.
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