Early foundations
“He has probably been vaulted more hours than anyone in the world.”
Todd Lane is an athletics coach at the Louisiana State University (LSU), where Duplantis spent a year before leaving to become a professional.
Lane met Duplantis when she trained her brother Andreas, who was also a post -paster for LSU.
“One of the things that makes Mondo so good is that a coach of himself,” he says. “Mondo always had an idea of Andreas’s vault.
“He understands the event very, very good.”
He helped to have a post -pool vault in the backyard of his house in Louisiana, where Duplantis grew up with his two brothers and his younger sister Johanna, who is also a professional jumper.
“My brothers and I would jump into the backyard, it was our patio of recreation,” says Johanna.
“Our father introduced us to pole. We fell in love with him, a son of domino effect.”
Greg Duplantis is an old elite post jumper. He and his wife Helena, a former heptatlete and volleyball player, coach, his son, who competes for Sweden.
“A memory is jumping in the backyard after school and Mondo would train me,” says Johanna.
“There is this video of him training me, and said:” That was terrible! “I was literally in my school uniform!
“There are many memories in that backyard that I will appreciate forever.”
Those hours practicing in the backyard soon brought results.
Mondo has multiple international records of age groups:
|
AGE |
Name |
Height |
|
7 |
Armand Duplantis |
2.33 |
|
8 |
Armand Duplantis |
2.89 |
|
9 |
Armand Duplantis |
3.20 |
|
10 |
Armand Duplantis |
3.86 |
|
11 |
Armand Duplantis |
3.91 |
|
12 |
Armand Duplantis |
3.97 |
|
17 |
Armand Duplantis |
5.90 |
|
18 |
Armand Duplantis |
6.05 |
|
19 |
Armand Duplantis |
6.05 |