Duplantis breaks pole vault world record for 11th time

At the All Star Perche competition in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Armand Duplantis broke his own men’s pole vault world record to 6.27m.

Duplantis, the Olympic and world champion, has already broken the record for his career on 11 occasions.

The Swedish 25-year-old won the competition by clearing over 6.02 meters before attempting to increase his previous record by one centimeter, which he broke in August.

Five years after setting the record for the first time with a height of 6.17 meters in February 2020, Duplantis succeeded in doing so on his first attempt.

When he won a second successive Olympic title at the Paris 2024 Games last summer, he increased his world record to 6.25 meters, and the third time on that occasion, he increased his mark to 6.25 meters.

Duplantis broke Renaud Lavillenie’s record that had been in place for almost six years, which he broke at the age of 20.

Since then, he has been advancing the record in one centimeter increments while also winning 10 significant international titles.

At the series’ final meeting in Madrid, Britain’s Molly Caudery won the overall World Indoor Tour Gold medal.

As she took the title to Slovenia’s Tina Sutej, the 24-year-old reigning world indoor pole vault champion, Caudery, 24, clocked 4.85 meters to win the championship.

Sutej, who had led the standings going into the final, did not respond to Caudery’s first-time vault over 4.75m, but she was the only other athlete to do so.

With her best three series performances, England’s Caudery added 27 points to her win in Karlsruhe and placed second behind Sutej.

One year after claiming her first major title at the World Indoors in Glasgow, she will be hoping to win one of Britain’s medals at the European Indoor Athletics Championships.

From 6 to 9 March, the Netherlands’ Apeldoorn will host the European Indoor Championships.

Bianca Williams, a fellow Briton, will also compete, who placed second on the night in Madrid by setting a personal best time of 7.16 seconds.