Eugene. Mondo Duplantis sets a new world record with 6.21 and jumps home with WC gold in such superior style that I don’t know what to compare him to anymore.
When Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympics?
Usain Bolt set a world record and a 9.58 in the toilet in Berlin 2009?
This is the division he plays in.
The same thoughts running through your head now as after the two historical moments.
how is that possible?
Mondo sails over the new world record of 6.21 in a jump that should be 6.30. There was a lot of air, very light, so without a margin of error.
And he took the record outdoors again, after setting the previous four indoors.
I saw him both jump 6.20 at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March and I saw him 6.18 with a lot of air in Glasgow.
But I’ve never seen him fly that high.
It was like it was just the start of his new run towards 6.30. There is no doubt that he already has it in his body, just as his father Greg told me after that record jump in Belgrade.
He even thinks 6.40 is possible in the future.
Mondo can get better at everything, so the sky’s the limit.
Compared to legends
So what are you comparing to?
Usain Bolt’s show at WC Berlin 2009 is probably the closest I can get these days. He then flew farther than anyone else and set a world record in the 100m, winning the 200m in 19.19 a few days later.
Also a new world record.
Now Bob Beamon’s height record of 8.90 is still the most extreme that happened in a major tournament.. when he broke the old world record by 55 cm in his first jump and won 71 cm ahead of runner-up Klaus Beer of East Germany.
But there were very special weather conditions, the max allowed +2.0 in the wind and Beamon got a jump that wasn’t really strong. His second longest jump of his career was an 8.33 that says something.
Perhaps the best comparison is Edwin Moses, the American who won 122 consecutive races between 1977 and 1987.
In nine years, nine months, and nine days, he hasn’t lost a competition.
I don’t know how many consecutive wins Mondo can have, it’s a branch that is affected the most by weather and wind, which could cause this to happen to the Swede as well.
Then Mundo can join it himself, as at the Diamond League gala in Lausanne after the Olympic gold medal last August.
Then he was only fourth and broke through 5.82. Neither Father Greg nor Mother Helena were in the stands to correct his mistakes and wrong decisions at the time.
Enmansshow
But he learned from this mistake.
Since then he has not lost.
He’s racked up a winning streak of nineteen games now after the World Cup Final, and I’m having a hard time seeing that streak break anytime soon.
It’s as if I’m sitting here longing for a competitor who can at least make a tiny bit of a match for everything.
Someone who can match a mondo by just over six feet.
Today there is no one around, and every rodeo competition with Mundo is a one-man show.
Mundo has always said he wanted to make history and be unique as a track and field player the day he retired. That includes passing legends like Segej Bubka, a Ukrainian who has won six consecutive world championships, but only one Olympics.
It’s a long way to go, but Mondo is well on his way.
When Serge Bubka He earned his first WC gold in Helsinki in 1983, aged 19.
When he last got in Athens in 1997, he was 33 years old.
He retired at age 34, although returned briefly at age 36 in 2000.
Mundo has held twelve, five World Cups and three Olympics.
He will only get better, and if he doesn’t suffer a more serious injury, he will be one of the greatest athletics when his career ends in a future that I hope is far into the future.
We’ll see history make more nights of this mild day in Eugene.
