• Chronicle Duplantis beats his pole vault world record: 6.19 meters

Lake Tahoe, Yosemite Park and many other places are nearby, but there in Minden, a small town in Nevada with just 2,000 inhabitants, the most precious thing is the poles.

Yes, the poles.

The most important company in the municipality is UCS Spirit, which employs a hundred residents and has been manufacturing poles for more than 30 years, the same poles.

There have been no changes, there have been no innovations.

It does not matter that athletics is in full technological revolution.

Never mind that globalization threatens their dominance.

From there came the poles that allowed

Sergei Bubka

to reach 6.15 meters in 1993 and those same poles are now used by

Armand Duplantis

to fly , from this Monday one centimeter more record holder, and to 6.19 meters.

"They are the same, they are lifelong. The great revolution took place in the 80s, when the poles began to bend and various mixtures of plastic material were tested, that is, carbon fiber and fiberglass. Then UCS created his pole, which was the one used by Bubka in several of his records and they are still there because it works for them.There are other brands, such as Essx, also from the United States, that have been changing more, trying more risky mixtures, but UCS has been manufacturing the same pole and if Duplantis uses it, it works", analyzes

Alberto Ruiz 'Lobito'

, pole vault finalist in Los Angeles 1984 and Barcelona 1992, former Spanish record holder and current head of the specialty at the Sant Cugat CAR.

"On the road, especially in the marathon, and on the track, in events like the 400 meters, the carbon fiber plates in the shoes have improved the times, but in the Duplantis pole it is self-explanatory. Their records are not belong to the technological revolution," he stresses.

New life, same material

In the last two years, since he first broke the world record, Duplantis has changed a lot.

He has gained muscle, he has settled in Sweden [he was educated in the US], he has had myopia surgery, he has taken up golf and has even started dating a girl, Desire Inglander, a model, also Swedish.

But he has never varied his poles.

He dresses them in yellow, the colors of his country, and he's done.

As revealed by one of his coaches,

Philippe d'Encausse

, a few months ago he asked UCS for a tougher model, but that change is part of his evolution.

"The pole vaulter always trains to take a slightly harder pole, which gives more response. But we are talking about calibration, like a tennis racket or a Formula 1 tire, not about a change of materials", adds Alberto Ruiz '

Today's coach, like so many other specialists, believes that Duplantis could raise the world record to the skies, up to 6.25 meters or even 6.30, but at the same time he reminds that "the bar must be passed".

"I had been looking for this 6.19 for two years, which shows how difficult it is. He is a special case. He is not the fastest, nor the strongest, nor the most technical, I would say that he is not a role model as he was Bubka, but he has something unique to do what he's doing," Ruiz concludes.

There are less than two weeks left, until the Indoor World Championships in Belgrade, to find out if Duplantis will quickly exceed 6.20 meters or if the mark will require as much as 6.19 meters (up to 48 attempts in 17 meetings), but what what is clear is that he will do it with the same poles.

The future flies with the material of the past.

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