Mondo Duplantis has been dominating the pole vault for so long that it is strange to think that this Sunday he will fight for his first World Cup in the open air. But it is like this. After the disappointment of Doha 2019, when he was silver behind the American Sam Kendricks – who is recovering from knee surgery and will not be in Oregon, a second stroke of bad luck after being left out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for testing positive for covid —, there is nothing that now seems to be able to stop the 22-year-old Swedish prodigy. Or almost nothing.
His great rival will be another American, Chris Nilsen, 24 years old, silver at the Tokyo 2020 Games —just behind Duplantis—, American record with 6.05 meters jumped this year, who plays at home in the first World Cup held on soil American and will be especially motivated, although in his statements he does not seem particularly convinced of his chances of causing an upset. “I hope to be in the top five,” he said after winning the American title. He is the only one, along with the Swede, who has jumped without fail in the classification to the World Cup final: Nilsen over 5.50, 5.65 and 5.75. Duplantis only on the last two heights.
Gold for Duplantis would be the logical consequence of the level he has been demonstrating for so long, nothing surprising despite its difficulty, so the eyes will also be on whether he sets a new threshold never exceeded. In March, at the Belgrade Indoor World Championships, she broke the bar at 6.20m. Going over it would enlarge the legend in a championship eager for world records —with two days to go, only the 400m hurdles had been beaten by the great American Sydney McLaughlin—. There is another alternative to shine the victory, although somewhat less heroic: surpassing the 6.16m that she has as the best mark of all time in the open air, achieved just over three weeks ago in Stockholm.
“I feel like I’m clearly in shape to win the title,” he said recently after a Diamond League tryout. “And maybe to do something special in Eugene,” she added. 100,000 dollars is the economic prize for each world record that is broken. Being in history is the intangible reward.
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