“I am extremely happy that my club, Upsala IF Friidrott, is arranging this pole vault gala.

To be able to compete at home in Uppsala together with the world's best pole vaulter, in the hall where I have spent so many hours of training, means a lot to me.

It will be crazy fun and we will aim for high altitudes ", says Armand Duplantis, reigning Olympic champion, European champion and world record holder in a press release.

The organizer hopes to attract up to 2,300 spectators to the hall in Gränby in northeast Uppsala.

Duplantis initiative

- This has been going on for several years but the pandemic has come in between.

It was "Mondo" himself who started talking about it, says Upsala IF athletics sports director Henrik Wennberg to TT and adds:

- Sergej Bubka was the first to have his own gala and Renaud Lavillenie also had it.

Now it is "Mondo" who is the world's best pole vaulter and now he wants his own gala in Sweden.

Ten of the world's best pole vaulters are promised in the starting field in the IFU arena.

But Henrik Wennberg does not want to give any additional names apart from the 22-year-old Swedish-American Duplantis.

Does not promise Kendricks

- Even if I can not say who is ready, you can count on it being the world elite.

Then I do not know if it will be a semi-Olympic final field or a full one.

I can not say now if Sam Kendricks (reigning world champion from the USA) has pain in the back of his thigh or not, in that case he will not come, says Wennberg.

MORE DUPLANTIS: Here he tries at the world record height (9/9)

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Duplantis tries at the world record height