Duplantis wins lakeside Diamond League pole vault but misses world record in Lausanne

What changed

Olympic and world champion Mondo Duplantis won a Diamond League pole vault staged by Lake Geneva in Lausanne on August 20, clearing six different heights on his first attempt and topping the competition with a best mark of 6.21 meters. He then had two attempts at a new world record of 6.32 meters and failed to clear the bar, finishing the night without extending the global mark of 6.31 meters he set indoors in Sweden in March.

The measured result

Duplantis's 6.21 was his best outdoor clearance since that indoor record-raising performance, and he cleared every height on first attempt in a competition that lasted about two and a half hours. Emmanouil Karalis, Duplantis's friend and rival, cleared 6.16 meters and narrowly missed a lifetime best of 6.21 on his second attempt. Three more athletes cleared 5.91 meters, a height that would have taken bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and four others, including Sam Kendricks, cleared 5.81 meters.

The setting and atmosphere

The men's competition was held at a pop-up venue near the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, a lakeside format that has become a traditional curtain raiser for the main Athletissima Diamond League meeting one day later. Duplantis called the event "the greatest pole vaulting competition ever" in front of a noisy crowd.

What remains uncertain

It was not reported whether Duplantis will make another record attempt later in the Diamond League season, and the immediate focus in Lausanne shifts to Friday's program, where Swiss runner Audrey Werro is the headliner in the women's 800 meters, chasing Jarmila Kratochvílová's 43-year-old world record and approaching it as the third-fastest woman in history at the distance.