Mondo Duplantis continues to rewrite history: another world record that will not last long

• Report The limits of infinity Armand Duplantis: "A centimeter is a lot"

The dictatorship of the centimeter.

How much history has the centimeter dictatorship stolen?

Before

everything was different in the pole vault.

Absolutely everything.

But above all the way in which the world record was broken.

It did not matter if the bar was placed two, three or four centimeters higher than the current record.

The objective then was to reach the heavens as quickly as possible, without further ado.

In 1983 Bubka picked up the record on the ground, with 5.83 meters, and was raising it to boats until five years later, in 1988, with 6.05 meters, he discovered that he was a legend and that his record would last for decades: since then he advanced little by little.

Before, on one occasion, in 1985, he even raised it six centimeters to once and for all exceed six meters, the historical barrier.

Now his successor, the man called to write him off the books,

follows his lead.

Like him, he knows that his rival has not yet been born and plays with the current limits at his whim.

Robert Ghement EFE

This Sunday the Swede trained in the United States closed the Eugene World Cup with a new world record, the fifth of his career, surely the easiest.

On his first attempt over the height he failed due to lack of concentration.

With the final of the women's 4x400 relay ready to start, the track judges pressed him and he did not jump: that is, he ran and stuck the pole in the box, but he let himself go.

Only on his second try, when all competition was over and Eugene's Hayward Field was delivered, did he outdo himself.

And he did it with a considerable distance over the bar.

Unlike on other occasions, when he brushed past with his feet or his chest, this time he had 8.2 centimeters left.

If he had attempted a higher height, who knows, 6.22, 6.25, 6.28 meters, he might have exaggerated his world record.

But the dictatorship of the centimeter rules, the one that establishes that the record must go to detail, that only the minimum each time and, above all, that the prize for breaking the world record is too juicy: 100,000 dollars and much more that will be delivered by your sponsor, Cougar.

At the end of his celebration, Duplantis was asked if he wanted a new height and he made it clear: "It's over, it's over".

"I didn't think about the record"

"I didn't think much about the record, really, I was focused on the victory. But when I set the height it was like everything was on my side. I don't know how high I'll go in the future, I don't want to analyze it. Now I just want to spend a little free time with my family and with my girlfriend, who has come from Sweden to see me", he commented in a mixed zone, euphoric, happy.

His joy came from the record, of course, but also from the triumph, which was certain, although nothing is ever certain.

Three years ago, at the World Cup in Doha, he was also a huge favourite, but he failed over 6.02 meters and the gold went to the American

.

This Sunday, with his fourth jump, over 6.00 meters, he was already a champion and went for the best mark ever in a World Cup.

The height: 6.06 meters.

He got over her at first.

And from then on he only had one new world record left.

In celebration of him, many boats, a back somersault and a while stretched out on the mat, the one that receives him after each virtuosity exercise.

The boy who learned from his father

in the patio of his house in Louisiana, the teenager who had to choose between his father's country (United States) and his mother's (Sweden), the young man who exceeded six meters with coming of age has already won all that could be won.

Robert Ghement EFE

What is left now?

Keep ascending into eternity, even this very year.

He has a couple of Diamond League meetings and the European in Munich to challenge the 6.22 meters and then the 6.23 and later, if that, the 6.24 meters.

It seems an exaggeration, but with his talent and his state of form, only an injury could stop a progression that is presumed infinite.

The experts consider that beyond 6.30 meters is the impossible, that it is not possible, but the Swede has a different opinion.

From a lot to a lot or little by little, for 10 years, Bubka raised the record 31 centimeters until leaving it at 6.14 meters.

With his own method, under the dictatorship of the centimeter, and at 22 years old, Duplantis has only just begun.

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