A dream comes alive

Armand Duplantis says the defence of his Olympic pole vault crown in world-record style came as no surprise as he had visualised it a "million times" when practising as a child in his own backyard.

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Coached by his American father Greg, a former pole vaulter, Duplantis is a product of a track and field-crazy family which had their own vaulting apparatus in the garden.

They were all present in the stadium and it was to them that Duplantis hurtled after sailing over 6.25 metres with no "pre-canned nonsense".

"That's just overflowed with emotions, freaking out," said Duplantis, the new record improving his previous best by 1cm in front of a delirious 69 000 capacity crowd at the Stade de France on Monday night.

"I've been fortunate enough to do it several times now, but every time the feeling is kind of the same. This was a more extreme version.