Armand Duplantis has already set a whopping 14 world records during his pole vaulting career. He only ever improved the existing record by one centimeter. But why? The answer is a little more complex than many people think at first glance.
Armand Duplantis has cleared up the rumors that he always improves the pole vault world record by “only” one centimeter for financial reasons.
“This one centimeter thing… you get the bonus, you get the money. That’s not completely untrue. That’s of course a factor,” admitted the Swedish superstar in the “L’Équipe” interview. However, that is only a small part of the truth.
Duplantis: Fans “just want to see a record”
“I think breaking a world record is something I can give to people. I can share this moment with them and the stadium. And often they don’t even care how much the world record is improved. They just want to see a record. Something that has never been done before. Even if it’s just a centimeter,” explained the Swedish exceptional athlete.
In addition, the world record height is, above all, a sporting challenge for him that he doesn’t know beforehand whether he can even master it.
“I don’t train at these heights”
“I’m jumping these heights for the first time in my life. I don’t train at these heights. In training I jump 20 centimeters less. It’s a false assumption that I jump 6.40 meters in training, then go to a meeting and only jump 6.30 meters to get the money. That’s not true,” “Mondo” made it clear.
Video: Crazy show! Here Duplantis jumps world record AGAIN
Duplantis continued: “With many of my world records, I probably couldn’t have jumped a centimeter higher. I barely managed it.”
Sometimes during his world record attempts he had “good jumps” where there was still space up to the crossbar. But “on the day itself, I don’t know what I can do,” said Duplantis, who described the outcome of a world record attempt as “unpredictable.”