Mondo Duplantis: Breaking down the biomechanics behind the best-ever pole vaulter

You don’t get to choose your own nickname, but you do get to prove why you were given it.

Armand Duplantis was nicknamed ‘Mondo’ — ‘world’ in Italian — at a young age by a family friend. It is easy to retrofit what was probably just a loving act of childhood innocence, but at 24, Duplantis has conquered the pole vault world numerous times.

In March, he claimed his fourth world title (2022 indoors and outdoors; 2023 outdoors; 2024 indoors) and in June, his fourth European title (outdoors in 2018, 2022 and 2024, and indoors in 2021).

Duplantis is the overwhelming gold medal favourite in Paris. He won in Tokyo three years ago. Out-jump everyone and he will be the first man to retain the pole vault Olympic title since Bob Richards (the United States) in 1956.

Duplantis is to pole vaulting what Usain Bolt was to sprinting; Michael Phelps to swimming; Simone Biles to gymnastics. It is a Duplantis dynasty.

His first world record was 6.17 metres (20ft 3in) in Poland in February 2020. A week later, he jumped one centimetre higher in Glasgow. Duplantis was lucky he was in Europe and not at home in Lafayette, Louisiana. He wouldn’t have been able to pop any champagne corks there — Duplantis didn’t turn 21 until that November.

Six more world records have followed, each time by a centimetre. Most recently, Duplantis jumped 6.24m three months ago in China, his first outdoor competition of the season. That would raise eyebrows and spark doping-related questions in other events. No such thing happens in the pole vault. That is just what Mondo does.

After all, Duplantis is responsible for 61 of the 189 jumps of at least six metres. Nine of the top 10 jumps in history are his, with only Renaud Lavillenie’s 6.16m effort from 2014 interrupting the pattern. Duplantis keeps smashing the ceiling but prides himself on consistency, with such a high-performance floor. He has only lost three times since the start of 2022 and not at all since July 2023 — 17 straight wins. He cleared six metres in 36 of his 50 competitions from 2022 onwards, including eight out of 11 this calendar year.

Duplantis featured on Tigers Win, a Louisiana State University (LSU, of which he is an alumnus) podcast, in April 2023. He was asked when he last failed. The answer: 2019, his final collegiate year. Duplantis finished second in the NCAA final in June, second in the Diamond League final in August, and was runner-up at the World Championships in October. The loss fuelled him. The next year, 2020, he improved his personal best by 13 centimetres (from 6.05m to 6.18m).

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In 2000, academic Francoys Gagne updated his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent. It theorised that those with natural abilities need a mix of luck, personal qualities and the right environment to develop and realise their talent.

Duplantis could be the poster boy. He comes from a family of athletes: Greg, his father, was an elite vaulter for the U.S. Helena, his Swedish mother, was an international heptathlete and volleyball player. Duplantis’ maternal roots are why he represents Sweden, not the U.S. His parents are still his coaches.

Mondo has two older brothers who vaulted at a decent level. He grew up pole vaulting in his backyard and still holds all age-group world records between seven and 12 years old. Certainly a sporting fairytale, but also an oversimplification for explaining Duplantis’ success. This is where biomechanics provide answers.

David Young, professor of physics at LSU, explains that elite pole vaulters need four component parts: “The speed of a world-class sprinter, the ability of a long jumper, the agility of a gymnast and the flexibility of a ballerina.”

Chris Mills, a senior lecturer in biomechanics at the University of Portsmouth, breaks this down to The Athletic: “A good vault involves mastery of each phase.” For Duplantis, Mills says, “It is not just one element that he excels at.”

Throwback to the electrifying triumph of Armand Duplantis 🇸🇪 at Tokyo 2020!

Witnessing his golden leap in the men’s pole vault was pure magic. Let’s relive that exhilarating moment of sheer athleticism and determination. 🥇🏅#Tokyo2020 | #ArmandDuplantis | #GoldMedal |… pic.twitter.com/xXU8tmm9La

— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) March 17, 2024

“A fast run-up is key as ultimately this will permit a greater grip height (of the pole). The higher you grip, the higher you vault,” says Mills. “Mondo has one of the highest approach speeds on the run-up, he grips high.”

His words echo what American pole vaulter KC Lightfoot said about Duplantis this summer: “He’s just so fast down the runway. He’s faster than all of us by quite a bit. Speed equals height in pole vault.”

Duplantis (5ft 11in) is small by pole vault standards, built more like Lavillenie (5ft 10in) than the U.S.’s Chris Nilsen (6ft 5in). As a high-schooler, he ran the 100m in 10.57s (wind-assisted by 0.1m/s) and long jumped 7.15m.

In a press conference for a Brussels Diamond League meet in 2022, Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (who has the most global women’s sprint titles in history) asked how fast he could run 100m. He looked her in the eyes and said he’d beat her. Duplantis didn’t give a time.

Mills says run-ups are “typically 14-20 strides”. Duplantis runs from afar. His 20-stride run-up (pole vaulters count every other step, so it is a 10-step run-up) stretches 45 metres.

Mills explains “the plant phase”, where Duplantis brings the pole down and plants it into the box, which is only “20 centimetres deep and 60 centimetres wide”. It is wider at the front and narrower at the bottom, where it slopes down.

The pole hits the strike plate and slides down to the back of the box where it reaches a ‘cavity’. This rectangle at the back of the box gives the pole space to move and bend when it hits the back wall. Duplantis says a big part of his success is reacting to how the pole moves.

Pole vaulters need to “ensure they maximise their height at take-off by reaching up as high as possible from an accurate take-off position. The prep for the take-off and position are critical to converting run-up speed and that kinetic energy to the pole, and storing it as strain energy,” says Mills.

Duplantis is a right-handed vaulter, so that hand grips the top of the pole, palm facing the sky. The left hand is further down, palm facing the floor. Therefore, he jumps off his left leg (image one in the sequence above), which stays straight as he jumps (image two).

Next, a lot of things happen in the blink of an eye. “After take-off, the pole vaulter exerts force, via their hands, on the pole to aid the movement of the pole bend forward towards the bar,” says Mills.

“Once the pole vaulter has swung past the cord of the pole — an imaginary line between the top and bottom of the pole — the task becomes whole body rotation about the top hand (Duplantis’ right),” Mills explains. “The vaulter must swing upside down as quickly as possible (image three), to ensure they are in an optimal position as the pole starts to recoil.”

Duplantis, compared to other vaulters, gets into this inverted position much faster. It resembles how someone might ‘cannonball’ into a swimming pool. His left leg swings up, from straight. It follows the right knee (which was bent at take-off) and drives to the chest.

Mills says it is Duplantis’ “timing on the pole and his ability to transfer the energy from the pole into himself that propels him to the heights that have never been achieved by any other athlete”.

Imagine a coiled spring. “The strain energy in the pole is released and simultaneously the athlete pulls along the line of action to maximise vertical velocity, while maintaining sufficient horizontal velocity, to clear the bar,” says Mills.

The legs shoot straight up as the pole straightens. If the events up until that point were explosive and sprinter-like, Duplantis now becomes half-gymnast, half-ballerina. Nilsen once said, “Mondo is the perfect mix between strength, finesse and speed.”

In the extension phase, “vaulters perform a half-turn followed by a pike position (upside-down V) over the bar”, says Mills. There is detail. Duplantis’ left hand comes off the pole as his feet clear the bar, then he pushes the pole away with his right hand just before the feet come down and the rest of the body follows. The chest and arms are whipped away from the bar as Duplantis falls.

His jumps never lack height, a testament to his speed. When his failures do come it is because his angles are slightly off and he comes down on the bar, clipping it with his legs or chest (see his 6.19m attempts at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021).

That happened at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow early this year. Duplantis won, of course, but didn’t manage any first-time clearances, needing three attempts at 5.85m, two at 5.95m, and three at 6.05m to win. He said it was the “hardest I have ever worked”. On an off-day, by his standards, Duplantis still took gold and had three world-record attempts.

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Duplantis is so good that he now has to pass at heights. This creates a psychological endurance test. At the (outdoor) European Championships in June, which Duplantis won with a 6.10m championship record, he went in at 5.65m and cleared first-time through to and including 6.05m, his winning height. There were two hours and 27 minutes between his first and fifth jumps. Duplantis laid on his foam roller in between.

All this means he ends up in two competitions: having to beat everyone else first, then getting to target the world record. Whereas others might build up from their competition-winning height to the world record, Duplantis goes straight for it. This completely flips the physical and mental demands, as he then has to be prepared to jump higher in quick succession.

Being the best in the world means you have few athletes to look at for guidance and inspiration. Duplantis does sprint sessions four times a week and only jumps once, partly because his technical base is so good, mainly due to the physical tax of repeated jumps at these heights. When he does jump, he’ll be at the track for hours, even if the session itself is only 45 minutes, but the warm-up and cool-down are long and complex. He still doesn’t like lifting weights.

Duplantis should be more arrogant. He acknowledges, rather than boasts, that he has won everything and broken every record. His support for fellow athletes in competitions belies his success. Duplantis wins graciously. There will be fewer more predictable events to watch in Paris, yet slightly paradoxically, few more watchable.

Mondo has a world stage to shine on again.

(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)