Early foundations
“He’s probably vaulted more hours than anybody else in the world.”
Todd Lane is a track and field coach at Louisiana State University (LSU), where Duplantis spent a year before leaving to turn professional.
Lane got to know Duplantis when he coached his brother Andreas, who was also a pole vaulter for LSU.
“One of the things that makes Mondo so good is that he’s a coach of himself,” he says. “Mondo always had insight into Andreas’ vaulting.
“He understands the event very, very well.”
It helped having a pole-vault pit in the back yard of their home in Louisiana, where Duplantis grew up alongside his two brothers and younger sister Johanna, who is also a professional pole vaulter.
“My brothers and I would jump in the back yard – it was our playground,” says Johanna.
“Our dad introduced us to the pole vault. We just fell in love with it – a kind of domino effect.”
Greg Duplantis is a former elite pole vaulter. He and wife Helena – a Swedish former heptathlete and volleyball player – coach their son, who competes for Sweden.
“One memory is just jumping in the back yard after school and Mondo would coach me,” says Johanna.
“There’s this video of him coaching me, and he was just like: ‘That was terrible!’ I was literally in my school uniform!
“There’s a lot of memories in that back yard that I will cherish forever.”
Those hours practising in the back yard soon brought results.
Mondo holds multiple international age-group records:
AGE
NAME
HEIGHT
7
Armand Duplantis
2.33
8
Armand Duplantis
2.89
9
Armand Duplantis
3.20
10
Armand Duplantis
3.86
11
Armand Duplantis
3.91
12
Armand Duplantis
3.97
17
Armand Duplantis
5.90
18
Armand Duplantis
6.05
19
Armand Duplantis
6.05
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