“I want to take the sport to another level”: Meet the record-breaking Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis

It’s not every day you meet an Olympic champion and world record holder. But it’s also not every day you meet someone as kind-hearted and devoted as Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis. He is busy prepping for a weekend with friends and family who are travelling in from the United States to experience the Swedish summer. The sun is shining, and you can feel the excitement for the upcoming season.

The Olympian, who won gold at his very first Olympic Game in 2021 in pole vaulting, grew up in Louisiana, jumping in the backyard of the family home. His dad, Greg, an American professional pole vaulter built a setup in the backyard, giving a young Duplantis the opportunity to start jumping when he was just a few years old, after being inspired by his older siblings' dreaming of doing the same.

“I don’t remember the first time when I was jumping. It was more like, I never wasn’t jumping,” he says, enthusiastically dressed in his signature Red Bull cap. “It was just something I was always doing. Since it was also so accessible to me.” Since this athlete can remember, jumping has felt like second nature to him, without a thought to how high he actually is over the ground.

“From when I can remember, I had a lot of talent in it, and I would pick up on things very quickly. I just really loved being out there [in the backyard]," he says, crossing his arms. "It was only me and my father, so, it became this great father-son time out there, where he was both coaching me, but we also just hung out… we both wanted to see how far we could take this.”

His parents have been training him since the very beginning of his career, two trainers that today have raised the athlete to be a record breaker. With his American father teaching him pole vaulting, and his Swedish mother (who used to compete in heptathlete) helping to improve his physics and creating the workout plan.

Granted, pole vaulting isn’t the most ‘sexy’ of sports, and is often overlooked in the shadows of other track and field events – though it is beginning to get more appreciation as the sport evolves. Today, the modest 23-year-old holds the world record in pole vaulting at 6.21 metres, won recently in July 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. When you consider that the standard height for men has been somewhere between 5.40 - 5.90 metres, with only limited few able to jump over the six-metre mark, it makes what Duplantis has achieved seem ever more awe-inspiring. Just consider for a moment: Duplantis has achieved the equivalent of jumping over a giraffe or a midsummer pole.

Where does he get the motivation from? “It needs to come from within. You just need to want it,” he says with steely passion. Being a world record holder means there are countless hours put in behind the scenes, of repetition, interval training, and the dragging of huge poles around the airports — not to mention, those intimate moments of internal self-reflection. “As an athlete, even if you have the potential for it, to have it work out as you hope and dreamed for — you have to feel lucky,” he explains.

Today, his name can sell out a stadium (particularly in Sweden) and he wants to continue growing the popularity of the sport, wanting to see how far pole vaulting can really go. “I have this kind of vision that I want to take the sport to another level that it has never been taken to.”

Duplantis is also someone who understands the power of mind over matter. “I never have thoughts that are negative and keep me down,” he says. “I can only control what I can control.” Duplantis makes it all sound incredibly simple, really. “I get that training in (even when I don’t want to) go to the competitions and just try to jump as high as I can.”

So what’s next on the agenda for this modern stoic? If he wins at his next competition, the outdoor World Athletics Championships in Oregon this July, he is already in the history books with the five highest pole vaults in history. But when he’s soaring way up high in the air, doesn’t he ever get, well, a little scared? “It never really crosses my mind that I am that high in the air. There’s so many other components that I am thinking about, so I don’t have the time to be afraid.”

Away from the track, the record holder likes to listen to rap and hip-hop to hype himself up for competition day, and, on occasion a sneaky bit of country music too (he is from Louisiana after all).

Talking to Duplantis, he is not afraid to open up, which makes the people around him feel at ease. But he also fights for his dreams — it’s all or nothing. He holds his head high and shows that, with the support of loved ones and a winning mindset, you really can fly.