Armand “Mondo” Duplantis won the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships with a world-leading jump of 6.05 meters, marking his fourth consecutive world championship gold. Given all of his achievements, it is worth asking if Mondo can now claim the title of pole vault GOAT.

Coming from a family of athletes, Mondo was always set up for success. Mondo was destined for the world stage, between having a former professional pole vaulter father who jumped 5.80 meters and is now his pole vault coach, to a former Swedish heptathlete and nutritionist mother who is now his main trainer, athletics is in his blood. He also had a pole vault pit in his backyard that he has been jumping at since he was three. Destined for the world stage, he started small in setting records starting at the age of seven, breaking every age group record until he was 14 He then set the age world records from 16 to 19 — which is when World Athletics stops officially counting. They restart counting for Master’s at the age of 35, however Mondo likely has the age group records up to the age of 24, his current age. 

Going by year, his most notable record in 2017 was when he set a World Junior Record multiple times. In 2018,while still in high school, he proceeded to compete at the professional level with his childhood hero Renaud Lavillenie — then, the world record holder — as well as joining the 6-meter club — an elite group of male vaulters that have jumped over 6 meters. As of now there are only 28 men that have vaulted over 6 meters. His vault of 6.05 meters at the European Athletic Championships ranked him as the fifth-best pole vaulter in history at just 18 years old, and in 2019, he got silver at the world championships.

In the short period of 2020, before the shutdown of all professional athletic competitions, he set high expectations — typical in the Summer Olympic years. In the first week of February, Mondo set a world lead by clearing six meters, four days later on Feb. 8 he proceeded to break Lavillenie’s six-year-old world record when he cleared 6.17 meters and then just seven days later, proceeded to set another world record on Feb. 15, when he cleared 6.18 meters. This is extremely impressive considering the record that Lavillenie broke had stood for twenty years and was jumped by the pole vault legend Sergey Bubka. The revolutionary of the sport, Bubka, was the first to break the six-meter barrier and 20-feet barrier and took the world record in 1984 at 5.85 meters, skyrocketing it until 1994, leaving it at 6.14 meters. His style of pole vault was so good and different that a now common drill for pole vaulters, Bubkas, is named after him.

Bubka was not only dominant in setting world records as he broke the world record 35 times — the indoor record 18 times, and the outdoor record 17 times — but also at the all-important world championships in which he won six consecutive world championships (however this was when World Athletics was still named the International Amateur Athletic Federation and only held world championships every three years). However, he only won one gold medal as he represented the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for much of his career. This meant that he had to follow the 1984 Olympics boycott as they were held in Los Angeles, California. In 1988, he won his first, and only, Olympic gold medal and in the subsequent three Olympics, he alternated between failing to clear his opening height and suffering an unfortunate heel injury. When he represented the USSR, he was rewarded monetarily for breaking the world record each time. This compensation continued after the dissolution of the USSR when he began to represent Ukraine because he signed a deal with Nike who gave him a $40,000 bonus every time he broke the world record. This brought out the spectacle in pole vault as he would break the world record by centimeters to maximize the reward. This tradition is continued by Mondo, as every time he breaks the world record he retires from competition, saving the next world record breaking jump for another competition.

Given Bubka’s monumental career, it is difficult to consider Mondo the all-around greatest pole vaulter of all time because while Mondo has broken the world record seven times, this number pales in comparison to Bubka’s 35 times. That being said, Mondo is well on his way to becoming the GOAT of pole vault as he has cleared over six meters more times in competition than Bubka, and as of February 2023, he accomplished this more than 60 times*. He also has won the World Championships — including indoor and outdoor — four consecutive times, though this has given him way more opportunities than Bubka had. He has also matched Bubka in the number of Olympic medals, having won the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 

Mondo has also won three consecutive Diamond Leagues, which are competitions unavailable to Bubka and only available at the tail end of his career, the equivalent being the IAAF Golden League. He is the reigning champion for the Diamond League, Indoor and Outdoor Championships, and the Olympics, as well as many other prestigious championships like the European Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Mondo receives nothing but gold.

Additionally, Mondo is an indomitable competitor, which has been said in some way or another by every pole vault competitor and commentator commenting on Mondo —  they joke that every competitor is fighting for second place. This includes the silver medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, Chris Nilen, who said that Mondo’s superiority over the other professional pole vaulters was “impressive and ridiculous.”

Mondo is a talent that is one in a generation and we are all lucky to have seen and continue to see history in the making. He is only at the beginning of his career. seeing as Bubka retired at the age of 38 and Lavillenie, aged 37 — the only other jumper to have jumped higher than Bubka — has yet to retire. Mondo is just 24, we are bound to see him compete for a long time, even if he is not the pole vault GOAT… yet.

*The number of times that Mondo has cleared six meters and up in competition is at least 71, considering he’s won 11 competitions since the 60 number was reported when he broke the world record for the fifth time, however it is likely higher but can not be verified by the writer because World Athletic does not release the field series reporting all the heights jumped in competition, only the results