• Armand Duplantis won his third competition of the year.
• Duplantis cleared 6.01m but he decided against attempting to break.
• Duplantis was less than pleased with his overall performance.

Armand “Mondo” Duplantis, the current world and Olympic champion in the pole vault, won his third competition of the year with a winning height of 6.01 metres at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais, a World Indoor Tour gold category meet.

The victory on Wednesday marked Duplantis’ third straight triumph during the indoor season, following victories of 6.10m in Uppsala on February 2 and 6.06m in Berlin last Friday.

In his second attempt, Duplantis cleared 6.01m, but he decided against attempting to break his own world record of 6.21m.

From his first attempt, at 5.64m, where he sailed over but left a trailing knee close to the bar on the way down, the world record holder had been less than pleased.

After passing at 5.73m, his first-time clearing at 5.82m put him in a tie for the lead with Italy’s Claudio Stecchi, who had also reached 5.82m with his first attempt and a personal best.

He subsequently needed two tries to cross 5.91m, but because all four of his competitors had already been eliminated by that stage, it was scarcely significant, and Stecchi came in second.

Kurtis Marschall of Australia, a two-time Commonwealth champion, and Jacob Wooten of the United States tied for third with 5.82 metres.

Despite the victory, Duplantis was less than pleased with his overall performance.

“I did not feel well. It didn’t go the way I wanted and I can’t really explain why. My body just didn’t respond the way I wanted it to. I felt a little flat. I feel really upset and uncomfortable because this is the second time I have had to leave this meeting early. I love this place and it deserves a higher standard. I promise I will before I finish,” he said after the win.

“I started my competition with a few bad jumps and never really got into the competition. It wasn’t that I was tired or that I did really heavy workouts, but I just screwed up anything in my tracks. Now I need to recover, but my goal is still to break the world record this winter.” The 23-year-old Swede has a breakthrough season in 2022, during which he set three world records, won two global titles, won 18 of his 19 competitions and vaulted six meters or higher 23 times.

He was also named the World Athlete of the Year at the World Athletics Awards 2022 in December.

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