Armand Duplantis has found the form.
He was millimeters from a new world record – and is now being praised by Alhaji Jeng.
– It’s great to see, says the SVT expert.
Armand Duplantis had not had the best start to the season, and there were some worried voices about his form ahead of Thursday’s race in France. Mondo had indeed won both the races he entered, but had not yet been over six metres.
New world best of the year
Before the competition on Thursday, however, national team captain Kajsa Bergqvist announced that the reports she received from training were extremely positive, and that she was not at all worried about Duplanti’s form. And it would turn out that she was absolutely right. Duplantis struck with a super jump during the All Star Perche gala, in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Duplantis cleared six meters for the first time this season, winning the event at 6.02, a height Mondo cleared on his first attempt. After the competition, Mondo paid tribute to the spectators.
– You (the audience) made me almost too excited. I ran a little too fast and had a little too much energy. But it’s only a good thing, it was a lot of fun, says Duplantis, according to SVT.
Millimeters from the world record
And as he did it. Duplantis failed his first attempt at 6.24, but in the second everyone thought he had made it. The jump was almost perfect, and the bar initially remained, before the missing fell down. The expert Alhaji Jeng even managed to roar “Yes!” before the bar fell teasingly. Duplantis was unable to set a new world record, but the super jump bodes well for the rest of the season, to say the least.
And in just his third race of the year, Mondo seems to have found super form. Afterwards, he was highly praised by the expert Jeng.
– It’s wonderful to see. He finds the timing better than before, it goes a little faster. He keeps the technical details very well, he missed that in Mondo Classics in Uppsala, he says.
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