During Tuesday evening there was an indoor competition in German Düsseldorf. The men's pole vault developed into a top-class competition - where the evening was crowned with Armand Duplanti's three attempts at world record-high 6.17 in its season premiere.
- It's amazing. It is one thing to do good results on training, but when you enter the competition it is a completely different atmosphere, it is a completely different heart rate and a completely different adrenaline rush. That he goes in and manages it the way he does is extremely impressive, says Alhaji Jeng to SVT Sport.
In particular, in the second attempt, he was close to erasing both Sergei Bubka's outdoor record, 6.14 and Renaud Lavillenie's indoor record, 6.16.
Too eager for the bar
That it did not become a world record yesterday means Jeng is about small details.
- If you were to geek down in the jump, it is so that when he is on his way up and is in the up and down position he would have done it a hundred more. If he had kept that line a little longer and had the rod pushed up all the way, he would have escaped like a bow over the bar, he gets a little too eager and goes towards the bar, he says.
"We're talking heights of 6.25"
This summer, the Olympics await for Duplantis and the other stake jumpers. But that he should have pricked the shape prematurely, Jeng is not worried.
- It's kind of like taking a television game and then you see what the player has for skills, is he strong, what he has in speed and so on. Armand has all the puzzle pieces. His challenge is to be at 98 percent at all levels, he does not have to be at 100 percent to pass the world record. So good is he. When he's done, I think we're talking highs of 6.25, he says.
Yesterday he stopped at 6.00 - which he took by a large margin and that meant a new Swedish indoor record and a new world year best. And we must not wait a long time for a new world record.
- It will be coming soon, within a month, says Jeng.
CLIP: See Armand Duplanti's second attempt at 6.17:
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