Sweden’s Armand Duplantis soared 6.27 metres to shatter the world pole vault record for a staggering 11th time at the All Star Perche meet in Clermont-Ferrand, France after releasing his debut song earlier the same day.
The two-time Olympic and world champion cleared the record height on his first attempt on Friday to break his previous global mark of 6.26 set in Silesia in August, sparking track-side fireworks that lit up the arena.
“I just felt really good,” Duplantis said. “What can I say, I came here to do it. I put everything in place to do it. The run-up worked really well. I just did it.”
Emmanouil Karalis was second with a Greek record clearance of 6.02m as six men cleared 5.91m or higher for the first time in a single competition. Australia’s Kurtis Marschall finished third after clearing 5.91m, a season’s best, on his opening try.
The 25-year-old Duplantis – who earlier in the day released his first song “Bop” under his nickname “Mondo” – easily cleared heights of 5.65m, 5.91m, 6.02m, and 6.07m. With the victory secured, he had the bar raised to 6.27m for his world-record attempt.
His song played over the arena’s sound system during his record jump.
“When I made this song a couple of months ago, I thought this would be a perfect song to jump to here,” Duplantis said. “That’s why I rushed it out.”
Duplantis has bettered the world record by a centimetre in each of his 11 times, dating back to 2020. He has broken his global mark four times in the last 11 months alone, including when he won his second Olympic gold medal with a record jump of 6.25m in Paris.
Renaud Lavillenie of France held the world record of 6.16, set in 2014, before the Swedish star kicked off his onslaught.
