Armand Duplantis has been a complete smash hit in recent years.
But what few know is that one of the ingredients for success is 77-year-old Gunilla Lydén, who is now emerging from the shadows.
– You need a “grandmother” who can help you, says “Mondo” in the television program “Malou meets”.
In just a few years have Armand Duplantis developed from a young talent to one of pole vaulting’s absolute greatest practitioners of all time. He has already won everything there is to win and recently he broke his own world record once again and the new record jump is 6.22 meters.
Mondo’s secret
But what few know about “Mondo” is that there is a secret hero behind all the success, someone who is now stepping out of the shadows and showing himself for the first time. In a new interview with the television program “Malou meets”, the 77-year-old is revealed Gunilla Lydéns decisive role Duplanti’s great success as a pole vaulter.
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Gunilla and Mondo met for the first time in Monaco five years ago and since then they have developed a warm relationship where the 77-year-old acts as a kind of “support grandmother” to the 23-year-old. Gunilla Lydén, or “Ugglan” as she is called by friends, has worked for over 25 years within SCIF, Sweden’s Central Association for the Promotion of Sports, and has become a bit of a legend in Swedish sports.
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Helping Duplantis
Now she is doing her utmost to help sport-Sweden’s great world star in the fall of age. Namely, one of her tasks is to store Mondo’s rods in her own garden.
– It is difficult if you have lived in the city and have an apartment. Then it is not so easy to have your poles with you. Then you need a “grandmother” who can help you a little with the sticks, says Duplantis in “Malou meets”.
– They have to be somewhere – and they are long and unwieldy. Whatever it is, they should go and hopefully get on a flight. All that happens very quickly – and then he knows where they are somewhere, Gunilla adds.
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But Gunilla has also helped when the mother Helena Duplantis been busy being the coach for the son.
– Then she can’t go in and be a mother too, right in the middle of it all. I was there when he bought his first apartment and then it’s time to go to Ikea and do some shopping, you can take that, she said. I have to be a coach right now, says Gunilla in the TV program.
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Armand Duplantis also opens up about the decision to opt out of his home country of the USA to instead compete for Sweden. A decisive message that particularly warmed the Swedish mother Helena.
– It was delightful. It was a good choice. I didn’t try to influence him. It felt like he needed to choose it himself, she says in the TV interview.
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