'Not a big numbers guy': Armand Duplantis explains his pole vault mindset

Time of India

12 hours ago

Armand Duplantis of Sweden (Tamas Vasvari/MTI via AP)
Mumbai: Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis is the man who keeps rewriting the numbers in pole vault. 'Numbers' is putting it very lightly. They're World Records, and he has set 13 of them. But ask him about the one number everyone wants to know, his ultimate limit, and he shrugs it off.
'I'm not a big numbers guy… I don't really care about limits,' he says. 'I know there's more to come, and I'm going to keep pushing it.'
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It's not false modesty. It's the way the 25-year-old operates. Living in the present, chasing the perfect jump, not the statistic. 'I try to maximise and achieve the most that I can in the now,' he said during an interaction with world media on Thursday. 'I think about it a lot less than you would probably imagine.'
Fresh from another world record, 6.29m in Budapest, Duplantis sounds as if he has already moved on. 'I feel really good,' he says. 'Of course, I'm showing that I'm in good shape and everything's going as I would like for it at this time of the season. Super happy about the jam in Budapest. It was a super amazing night for me.'
There's no long bask in the glory. 'I just have this real internal drive and motivation that I just want to keep being better,' he says.
That drive comes with what he calls 'short-term memory loss' about his achievements. 'I probably don't soak in and forget my accomplishments too quickly. It takes a few days and then I just forget what I did and then I just start looking towards the next thing,' he says. 'I always figure out a way to make new goals and look forward. And it becomes probably even quicker and quicker now too.'
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This constant reset is, in his mind, simply 'the way that I'm built… I just always look forward in that kind of way.'
Tokyo dreams
Breaking a world record doesn't come with instant calm. 'It's always a bit difficult to find that deep sleep cycle after a world record because of the excitement and what not,' he admits. 'But no, I feel really good… just trying to keep pushing forward.'
That push is now aimed at Tokyo, the city where he won his first Olympic gold in 2021, in front of empty stands. 'I'm super excited to go back to the stadium that I won my first Olympic gold… this time with fans,' he says, talking about the World Championships in Tokyo next month.
'I haven't been this excited about a competition, maybe ever.'
The memory of that silent victory still lingers. 'It was a little bit more like a spooky and eerie type of feeling when I was in there because of all the circumstances,' he recalls. The difference, he believes, could be telling. 'I'd like to say that the spectators probably would have given me that little push to get over it,' he says of his near miss at 6.19m during those Games.
Not a 'lab rat'
Pole vault has been his life since childhood, guided by his parents, but Duplantis is quick to dismiss one persistent myth. 'It's a very common misconception that I was like this lab rat and I was forced to evolve from a very young age,' he says. 'I have other brothers and other siblings… my other brother was a baseball player and he liked baseball a lot more than pole vaulting. And there was no problem with that. My parents let us create our own path.
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It's why his advice to young athletes is about trying different sports and choosing what they enjoy most. 'You have to let kids be kids at the end of the day,' he says.
Calm on the runway
For an event that requires sprinting down a runway before vaulting over six metres, Duplantis stays strikingly calm. 'I get nervous in, like, an exciting way,' he explains. 'I don't get scared. If you're scared and you have any type of negative thoughts… that's usually a recipe for failure.'
It's a mental strength he prizes as much as his technique. 'Zen is something that suits me very well and something that I can separate myself from most athletes and most jumpers,' he says.
Fuel from rivals
This year, Greek vaulter Emmanuel Karalis has emerged as a serious challenger. 'It's great to see… it pushes me,' Duplantis says. 'Coming off his last few meets… it gave me a lot of energy and motivation.'
Still, he knows reputation alone doesn't win competitions.
'They don't just give me the trophy because I'm the favourite… I still have to go out there and I have to compete and I have to be on my A game and I have to earn my title as the one that's going to be the best and last man standing on that day every time,' he says. 'Everything's earned.'
No magic number
In an era where some athletics records stand for decades, Duplantis' constant progression is rare. But he insists there is no magic number taped to his bedroom wall. 'I'm not an OCD person… I like to let things just kind of happen naturally,' he says. 'I know that there's a lot more and that I'm going to keep jumping higher… but I don't really care about numbers in that way.'
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