A remarkable development in recent times is the dominance of specific individuals in sport. Tennis witnessed almost two decades of dominance by the troika of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. The world was waiting for the sport to get democratised as these legends inevitably aged, only to see a new era of ‘Sincaraz’ (Sinner-Alcaraz) being heralded – the last eight Grand Slams have gone to the duo with no third competitor in sight, a distant third being the ageing Djokovic himself. Another unlikely sport where we have seen individual dominance has been pole vault. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we would open the sports page of the daily to see Sergei Bubka breaking his own world record ever so often. Now, Armand Duplantis, fondly referred to as Mondo, has taken the baton from Bubka to break records routinely with no competitor in sight.
“In 1984, Ukraine’s Sergey Bubka set a world record of 5.85m. It was the first of 17 times he would set a new global mark. Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie ended his dominance in 2014, taking the record to 6.16m. But there was a new kid on the blocks – or, should we say, the runway. In February 2020, a 20-year-old Armand Duplantis – ‘Mondo’ as he’s more commonly known – broke Lavillenie’s record by one centimetre. The new mark was 6.17m. But not for long. Less than a week later, Duplantis went over 6.18m. For the five years since, the Swede has continued to nudge up the bar in one-centimetre increments. On average, he breaks the world record three times per calendar year. A clearance of 6.30m at the World Championships in September 2025 meant he broke the record for the 14th time. The closest anyone has come to challenging Duplantis this season was when Emmanouil Karalis cleared 6.08m in August 2025. Dominant is probably an understatement.”
This fascinating piece in the BBC gives us a sense of what underpins this dominance in sport with Mondo as a case study. The first point is obvious: ““He’s probably vaulted more hours than anybody else in the world.” Todd Lane is a track and field coach at Louisiana State University (LSU), where Duplantis spent a year before leaving to turn professional.”
It helped that he grew up in a family of pole vaulters, vaulting his childhood for fun in his backyard. He holds the international pole vault record for almost every age group starting with age 7.
Whilst the countless hours might suggest focus, Mondo demonstrates another recently talked about facet of having multi-disciplinary interests. “He has almost two million followers across TikTok and Instagram, and between breaking world records he has been recording music. His debut single Bop came out in February and has had more than two million streams on Spotify.”
The third is that rare balance of confidence and humility. The author compares his mentality to the late Kobe Bryant’s Black Mamba. All these traits in turn have helped him finesse his technique, something the piece describes in great detail, which in itself is quite fascinating. We recommend you check out one of Mondo’s world record breaking vaults in slow motion on Youtube to fully appreciate the text describing the technique so very articulately. A former record holder Kate Rooney aptly put it “His execution is poetry in motion”. You will also notice in the videos how even his competitors joyously celebrate his record-breaking vaults.
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