Sublime Duplantis sets another record
ATHLETICS
ROME: Americanborn Swede Armand Duplantis produced the highest ever outdoor pole vault jump yesterday when he cleared 6.15m to win gold at the Rome Diamond League meeting and continue his remarkable, unbeaten season.
The 20yearold cleared the bar at the second attempt with room to spare and was only 3cm short of the world record he set indoors in Glasgow in February.
Despite that, he decided not to go for a higher mark at the huge Stadio Olimpico, where there were no spectators due to Covid19 restrictions.
Sergey Bubka’s 6.14m mark in 1994 was the previous highest outdoor clearance, but World Athletics has not distinguished between indoor and outdoor records in pole vault since 2000.
‘‘There’s a lot of confusion because the pole vault is the only event which has one world record for both indoors and outdoors,’’ Duplantis said.
‘‘I wanted the outdoor world best at 6.15 so there would no longer be any confusion. I now have the best jumps indoors and outdoors.’’
Duplantis, a world silver medallist in Doha last year, set a world record by clearing 6.17m in Torun, Poland, in February and then bettered that by one centimetre in Glasgow the same month. He has won all 15 meetings he has competed in this season.
The son of an American pole vaulter, who grew up with a pole vault pit in his garden at home in Louisiana, was vaulting higher than a London double decker bus as a teenager and at 17 he had already cleared 5.90m.
There were also impressive performances on the track with two worldleading times.
Elaine ThompsonHerah ran the fastest time this year as the Jamaican demolished the field to win the women's 100m in 10.85sec. American Aleia Hobbs was a distant second and Ivorian Marie
Jose Ta Lou third.
Jacob Kiplimo also produced a worldleading time to win the men's 3000m ahead of Jakub Ingebrigtsen in 7 min 26.64sec. It was also a Ugandan and Diamond League record. — Reuters