Armand Duplantis

Olympic and World Championship gold medalist Armand Duplantis is a Swedish pole vaulter. Duplantis has cleared 6.00 metres or higher on more occasions than any other vaulter in history. He once set a personal best of 6.18 metres, which ranked him as the joint third-best performer ever, alongside Sergey Bubka and Steve Hooker.

Duplantis was born in the United States but was raised in Sweden. He acquired a sufficient command of Swedish while growing up in a home where English was the primary language. Encouraged by his mother, Duplantis undertook intensive Skype classes to increase his fluency. After winning the Olympic gold medal in 2021, his language skills had advanced to the point that he felt confident conducting complete interviews in Swedish.

In 2019, Duplantis was awarded the IAAF Rising Star Award. He has also been nominated for the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year Award and the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. He expressed happiness that the Swedish people have accepted and loved him after receiving the Jerringpriset as the most well-liked athlete in Sweden in 2020. In order to maximise his training opportunities, Duplantis typically splits his year between the winters in his birthplace of Louisiana in the United States and the summers in Uppsala, Sweden. Due to the fact that Duplantis’ mother Helena was raised in Avesta, the city constructed a pole vault bar next to the enormous Dala horse monument to display the height of his world record, which caused Duplantis to “break down in tears” upon learning of it.