What makes Mondo’s record-breaking world tick

There are times Mondo Duplantis visualises or jokes about random things he could do with his talent. Jump over a two-storey building perhaps. Maybe across a creek as well. He'd even fancy-God forbid he should ever be in that situation, he adds-an escape from prison.

- Rutvick Mehta

"I'd probably have the best chance out of anybody if I had a nice stick to jump over the walls," Duplantis said.

Hypothetical prison breaks aside, the pole vault star is busy breaking world records in reality. With seemingly ridiculous ease and astonishing frequency.

The most recent instance came on Tuesday, when Duplantis cleared 6.29m at the Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Budapest to better his 6.28m effort in June. It was the third time he raised his own mark this year, and the 13th overall since he first leaping a world record 6.17m in February 2020.

Next month as he returns to Tokyo, where the reigning two-time Olympic champion won his first gold in 2021, Duplantis will be in competition with himself to see if he can crank it up by another centimetre in defending his World Championships title.

Because the last time the Swedish-American pole vaulter did not win a World Athletics meet was, incidentally, leading into the 2023 Budapest Worlds when he was fourth at the Monaco Diamond League. It's so far back that Duplantis needs a little reminding.