CLERMONT-FERRAND (France) — Armand Duplantis of Sweden set a new world pole vault record of 6.22 metres at an indoor meeting in France.
Olympic champion Duplantis broke his own record of 6.21m that he set in winning the world title outdoors in Oregon last year.
Competing at the All-Star Perche meeting in Clermont-Ferrand in central France organised by 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Renaud Lavillenie, Duplantis cleared the new record at his third attempt to the delight of the 4,000-strong crowd.
Duplantis, 23, described the record vault as “almost an out-of-body experience”.
“When you have moments like this, when the energy is so high, and you’re going down there for the record, it feels like levitating, it feels like my body never even touched the ground the whole jump,” he said.
“There’s something about it that just feels overwhelming right now, and I really think it’s because Renaud means so much to me, he’s meant so much to me since I first started, he’s been my biggest inspiration, biggest idol.
“He really motivated me, made me believe that I could break the world record. So for me to break the world record here, his hometown, his competition that he hosts,” Duplantis added according to AFP.
US-born Duplantis entered the competition at 5.71m, clearing that height at his first attempt.
He passed at 5.81m and managed 5.91m on his second try before winning the competition by clearing 6.01m on his first attempt before having the bar raised to the record height.
It was the sixth time that Duplantis has broken the world record.
He set the first in Torun in February 2020, when he cleared 6.17m to add a centimetre to Lavillenie’s previous world record of 6.16m that had stood since 2014.
Elsewhere, Britain’s Dina-Asher Smith dominated the 60 metres at the World Indoor Tour final; defeating domestic rival Daryll Neita and outdoor world 200m champion Shericka Jackson.
Asher-Smith clocked a time of 7.05 sec to win ahead of Neita’s 7.13 in Birmingham, having earlier broken her British record in the heats with 7.03.
Destiny Smith-Barnett of the United States was third in 7.15 with Jamaican sprinter Jackson fourth in 7.18.
Asher-Smith, who will sit out the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul next month, said she felt ready to move on from a 12 months in which she lost her grandmother before the world championships in Eugene and went on to finish fourth in the 100m and third in the 200m before a hamstring injury dashed Great Britain’s relay chances.
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