New Delhi, March 1 (HS): Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis broke the world pole vault record for the 11th time on Friday by clearing 6.27m at the All-Star Perch meet in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

The two-time Olympic and world champion cleared the record height in his first attempt to break his previous global record of 6.26 set in Silesia in August, lighting up the arena with the glow of track-side fireworks.

I felt really good. What can I say, I came here to do it. I prepared everything to do it. The run-up went really well. I just did it, Duplantis told reporters.

Emmanouil Karalis finished second with a Greek record clearance of 6.02m, while six men cleared 5.91m or more in the same competition for the first time.

The 25-year-old Duplantis – who released his debut song Bop under his nickname Mondo the day before – easily cleared heights of 5.65m, 5.91m, 6.02m and 6.07m and, as he won, he raised the bar to 6.27 for his world record attempt.

His song was playing on the arena’s sound system during his record jump.

When I made this song a few months ago, I thought it would be the perfect song to jump here. So I released it as quickly as I could, he said.

Duplantis has bettered the world record by one centimetre each of the 11 times since 2020. He has broken his global record four times in the last 11 months.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar