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‘There’s not necessarily a perfect season – that’s as perfect as it can get’
The Guardian
|December 23, 2025
Pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis reflects on a stunning 2025 in which he won two global titles and broke the world record four times - he even wants to be ‘the new Seb Coe’
Plenty of sports stars strive for perfection. In 2025, Mondo Duplantis achieved it. He broke the pole vault world record four times. Retained his world indoor and outdoor titles. Won all 16 competitions that he entered. Was voted World Athletics' male athlete of the year. And, for good measure, was named the BBC's overseas personality of the year too.
“There’s not necessarily such a thing as a perfect season,” Duplantis says on a bright December day in Monaco. He pauses. “But that’s as perfect as it can get.”
Sporting dominance can eventually become sterile or dull. Think tiki-taka-era Spain. Or Mercedes-era Lewis Hamilton. Duplantis, though, remains track and field’s greatest magic trick. How, you ask, will he clear a bar that is not far off the height of an average British house? But then he charges down the runway, plants and twists and flips, and makes his audience gasp yet again.
On special occasions the stuntman’s instinct to push the limits is fused with a leading actor’s ability to steal a scene. At the Paris Olympics last year, after Duplantis had broken his own world record, he then charged across the track to passionately kiss his fiancee, the model and content creator Desiré Englander. The cameras captured every frame. The clip went viral. Suddenly the Swede was a global celebrity as well as a double Olympic gold medallist.
How much did that moment change your life, I ask, and how often are you recognised now? “Night and day,” Duplantis says. “It’s all the time. I feel like there are so many people that know me without even knowing me, which is very weird. It’s not necessarily that 100% of people recognise me on the street. But a lot of people know the clip and the moment.”
However, Duplantis insists the celebration was completely spontaneous, fuelled only by adrenaline and unbridled joy.
This story is from the December 23, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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