Olympic Spotlight: Pole Vaulter Armand Duplantis
Armand Duplantis will represent Sweden in the pole vault.
Credit: © Denis Kuvaev, Shutterstock
Armand Duplantis is a Swedish-American pole-vaulter. He chose to represent Sweden at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. Duplantis has set a number of world records. He became the youngest person to ever pole-vault over 6 meters when he vaulted 6.05 meters (19.84 feet) in 2018 at the age of 18. In 2020, Duplantis broke a long-standing outdoor pole-vaulting world record when he vaulted 6.15 meters (20.17 feet).
Duplantis was born on Nov. 10, 1999, in LaFayette, Louisiana, to an athletic family. His father Greg was a pole-vaulter, and his mother Helena also competed in track and field. Armand started pole-vaulting at the age of three, picking up the sport from his father. Armand’s older brothers, Andreas and Antoine, as well as his younger sister, Johanna, have all been competitive in the field of pole-vaulting. His brother Antoine was drafted as a baseball player for the New York Mets organization.
Armand’s record-breaking career began in middle school. At the age of 10, his vault of 3.86 meters (12.66 feet) broke the world record for his age and also exceeded that for 11- and 12-year-olds. In 2015, Duplantis won the title of International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) World Youth Championship. Duplantis was both a European Champion and U20 (Under 20) Champion in 2018. Duplantis enrolled in Louisiana State University in 2018. In 2019 he was named the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Field Athlete of the Year and Freshman Athlete of the Year for both indoor and outdoor sports. He earned a gold medal as a 2019 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Indoor Track and Field Championships. In June 2019, Duplantis announced via Twitter that he would be going professional, effectively ending his collegiate sports career after one season.
