Armand Duplantis didn’t just win European Championship gold.
He also got a real bang for his buck – thanks to a new bonus system.
But Jacob Hård was not impressed by the big change in this year’s championship.
– It’s a bit ridiculous, he says in SVT’s broadcast.
Armand Duplantis went into this year’s EC as the overwhelming favorite in the pole vault. The Swede wins pretty much every competition he competes in, but this year there was an extra carrot for Duplantis in addition to the medal itself.
Big money rain for Mondo
A big change to this year’s championship was that there was now prize money for the very best during the championship, in order to attract the best to compete and not just skip the competition as the Olympics are coming up in just over a month. In total, Mondo collected 570,000 kroner for his jump of 6.10 – and that was exactly the height he needed to get the bonus, in competition with the best results from the long jump, triple jump and high jump.
Armand Duplantis had won the competition early on, and normally Mondo sets the bar straight to a new world record height. But thanks to the bonus money, he chose to do an “intermediate jump” of 6.10, which he managed in the first attempt. This meant that Duplantis had a better result than the winners of the other jumping branches managed, and he got a real bang for his buck.
Hard’s big criticism
But Jacob Hård, SVT’s longtime commentator, was not impressed. In the broadcast during Mondo’s competition, he saw the new system.
– It’s somewhat complicated and, in my eyes, a slightly clumsy system. There they bundle together different branch groups, and so they say that the prize money goes to the one who makes the best result of sprinters, of middle distance runners, and in this case jumpers. So now Duplantis must make a result that is better than the three-stage winner’s 18.18 yesterday, says Hård.
Above all, Hård opposes comparing disciplines in athletics.
– I personally think it is a bit ridiculous to compare branches in this way. It’s actually quite impossible, but you’ve chosen to do it that way, and you probably have some ranking table that you go by. If Duplantis jumps 6.10, it is considered better, and then it is Duplantis who gets the prize money.
Armand Duplantis was already clear before the competition that he planned to jump the height required to take part in the bonus money, and after 6.10 he had three attempts at the world record. The first was really close, but Mondo has to wait to raise the best jump of all time to 6.25.
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