Duplantis wins third straight world title, breaks WR at 6.30m in Tokyo

Armand Mondo Duplantis won a third consecutive world pole vault title and then raised the bar again for his sport, clearing 6.30 metres on his final attempt to set a new world record at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Monday night. The Swedish American’s victory and record came at the National Stadium during the championships’ opening week, with the final contested after the qualification round earlier in the weekend.

Duplantis secured the title by clearing 6.15 metres, and after that guaranteed gold he asked for the bar to be raised to a height no one had yet cleared. On his third and final attempt at 6.30 metres he produced the successful vault, edging his own world record by one centimetre and recording what reports describe as his 14th world record in the discipline. He celebrated with an exuberant lap of the track, embraces with family and partner, and a lap around the stadium draped in a Swedish flag.

The final effectively boiled down to a showdown between Duplantis and Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis after both men were the only competitors to clear six metres. Karalis took silver, while Australia’s Kurtis Marschall won bronze with a best of 5.95 metres, edging...