ZURICH, Switzerland (AFP) — Pole vault king Armand “Mondo” Duplantis has vowed to bring his enthralling season to a more satisfactory end at Thursday’s Diamond League final in Zurich after suffering a rare defeat in Brussels last week.
On the back of winning Olympic gold at last year’s Tokyo Games, the United States-born Swede has gone on to totally dominate his event this year, winning the world indoor title in Belgrade in March and world outdoor gold in Oregon in July.
Both titles were claimed in world record heights of 6.20 meters and 6.21 meters, respectively.
In a dream summer, Duplantis also sealed European gold in Munich before failing three times at 5.91 meters in Brussels to break a 17-strong season win streak and hand Filipino Ernest John Obiena a shock victory.
“It’s rare for me to jump the way I did. Maybe I needed a bit of a wake-up call,” Duplantis conceded.
“We’re humans, we make mistakes sometimes and I think that showed definitely for me last week in Brussels.”
“Failure is important: I’ve learned a lot of things over my career from my major losses that I’ve had and I think that’s been some of the most important things for me to get to where I am today.”
“So try and take the right things from when you mess up, realise where you messed up and try to learn, that’s the most important thing.”
“I feel like I’ve taken the right things away from it and I’m ready for tomorrow.”
Duplantis is one of three world record holders on show in Zurich along with Nigerian 100m hurdler Tobi Amusan and triple jump queen Yulimar Rojas of Venezula.
