Armand Duplantis won his second straight WC gold.
Then Kurtis Marschall couldn’t help himself.
The rival’s cheeky joke made Mondo tan.
Many pole vaulters jumped at the absolute peak of their ability when the final of the WC was decided on Saturday. But no one was even close to stopping Armand Duplantis from securing a second straight World Cup gold.
Absolutely superior
Duplantis is also the reigning Olympic champion, two-time Diamond League champion, and there is hardly a competition that Mondo does not win. This summer he unexpectedly did not come first in a competition, but in retrospect it emerged that Mondo had major problems with a cramping thigh. Now he was healthy and whole, and immediately it was a hugely convincing victory, as he won WC gold without even tearing once.
Armand Duplantis is already the pole vault’s all-time greatest, in clear pursuit of the icon Sergej Bubka’s record in the number of championship wins. Duplantis is of course the super favorite to defend his Olympic gold in Paris next summer, and it is not easy for the Swede’s rivals to know that a historically good performance is required to even threaten Duplantis for the gold medals.
READ MORE: Armand Duplantis was completely snubbed after the WC gold – here are the new clear Swedish demands: “Would have been strange otherwise”
The rival’s cheeky joke
According to the Sports Inquirer, that’s exactly what Duplantis was told after the WC gold last Saturday. The site writes that the competitor Kurtis Marschall, who shared the bronze medal with the American Christopher Nilsen, came up with a perfectly clever joke to Mondo.
– Can you just let someone else win sometime…?, he said.
Armand Duplantis then shocked everyone at the subsequent press conference, when he told them that he is going to start a venture into the long jump. It was, of course, fun, and Mondo’s competitors will continue to compete with the best pole vaulters of all time in major championships in the future. And Marschall, despite his fun with Mondo, was very impressed with the effort.
“It’s an honor to be here with the guy who’s putting the sport in a position it’s never been in before. None of us would ever want to compete in a different era of pole vaulting than this,” he said.
READ MORE: Armand Duplanti’s shock message after the WC gold – which makes everyone drop their jaws: “I’m going to change sports”