Armand Duplantis on Saturday won another pole vault world title after he was pushed all the way by Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis.
Duplantis won his fourth consecutive world indoor championships with a tournament record vault of 6.25m, a 10cm improvement on his winning height a year ago in Nanjing, China.
Duplantis cleared his first attempts at 6.10m, 6.15m and then 6.25m, when he wobbled the bar.
Photo: AFP
Karalis passed at 6.10m and 6.15m, and missed his attempts at 6.25m, finishing runner-up for a second straight year.
Duplantis put away his pole, foregoing attempts at 6.32m to break his world record of 6.31 that he set last week at the Swedish meeting named after him, the Mondo Classic.
“I am proud to have come through for the win. Today, it was about the battle. It was a tough competition, and that is why I didn’t go for a world record,” Duplantis said. “After all those jumps it was difficult to go back-to-back. You only get three minutes on the clock, which is not full rest at all. I had some lactic acid in my legs by that point.”
Karalis was runner-up at 6.05m and Australia’s Kurtis Marschall third with a personal-best 6m, marking the first time in history that three vaulters surpassed 6m in the same indoor contest.
Simon Ehammer of Switzerland reclaimed the heptathlon title with a world record score of 6,670, adding 25 points to the previous high set in 2012 by Ashton Eaton of the US. Ehammer was the world indoor champion in 2024 and runner-up last year.
Also, Zaynab Dosso of Italy won the women’s 60m final — Olympic 100 champion Julien Alfred was third — Christopher Morales Williams of Canada and Lurdes Gloria Manuel of the Czech Republic won the men’s and women’s 400m respectively, and Josh Kerr of Britain the men’s 3,000m six months after tearing his calf in the world outdoor 1,500m final in Tokyo.
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