Glorious Technicolor How daredevil vaulter Duplantis gatecrashed the mainstream

We are sitting in a swish Parisian hotel, Mondo Duplantis and I, but his mind is elsewhere. It's on the runway. Then high in the sky. Bending, arching and twisting over another impossible peak, six metres up and the rest. At the precise point where he knows he has shattered the world record again.

- Sean Ingle

So what are those milliseconds like? "Every one brings a different type of emotion," he replies. "But in some way, it's the same. It's a kind of hysteria."

Duplantis pauses. And then he's back where elevation meets ecstasy and then gravity. "You are freaking out inside, because it doesn't feel real," he says. "When I'm on the way down, I can see the bar is going to stay there. But it almost feels fake. You go into this almost cloud-nine type feeling, the dopamine kick or whatever it is, and suddenly you're on a different planet. It almost feels completely out of this world."

Anyone who has watched Duplantis vault this year has had a similarly ethereal experience. His record? Fifteen competitions, 15 wins. Gold medals in the world indoor championships, European championships, and the Olympic Games. And, incredibly, three more world records. Every athlete chases perfection. But in 2024, the Swede achieved it.