By Nick Mulvenney
TOKYO (Reuters) – Mondo Duplantis lit up the third night of the Tokyo world championships when he broke the pole vault world record for the 14th time with a jump of 6.30 metres after securing a third straight world title on Monday.
The gold medal was already in the bag for the American-born Swede and all the other events finished when he had the bar raised a centimetre higher than the record height of 6.29m he managed in Budapest last month.
He failed by the narrowest of margins at his first two attempts but, roared on by a packed house at the National Stadium, slid over on the third with the bar giving a slight wobble before settling.
The stadium exploded as the 25-year-old raced over to celebrate with his family in the crowd before being mobbed by his delighted rivals.
It was a stark contrast with the scenes at the same arena four years ago when Duplantis won the first of his two Olympic titles with the Tokyo public locked out because of the COVID pandemic.
Seven of the 12 vaulters cleared 5.90m in an unusually strong competition but the contest, such as it was, soon came down to Duplantis and Greek Emmanouil Karalis.
Karalis, bronze medallist behind Duplantis at the Paris Olympics, secured the silver medal with a jump of 6.00m but failed at 6.10m, 6.15m and 6.20m as he tried to put some pressure on the reigning champion.
Duplantis sailed over at 6.10m and 6.15m and then gave the crowd and athletics world what it wanted with his fourth world record jump of the season.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Ken Ferris)
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