Pole vault coaches paying close attention to Mondo

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

As soon as Armand Duplantis cleared 19 feet, 4.25 inches (5.90 meters) in the pole vault April 1 at the 90th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, Morry Sanders’ phone started “blowing up” with phone calls and text messages in Arkansas.

He’s not the only one. As the prodigy from Lafayette, La., continues his climb to the upper reaches of global pole vaulting, club and high school coaches across the country are paying close attention, studying Duplantis’ videos and trying to dissect the technique so they can make better sense of it.

Universally, there is a sense of wonder about what Duplantis is achieving at age 17.

“The first thing to say is just that he’s amazing,” said Lawrence Johnson, the 2001 world champion and 2000 Olympic silver medalist who coaches Team Vault Assault in Pennsylvania.

“To have that physique and the skills he has, it leaves me in a stupor.”

Duplantis’ history with the vault is well known. Although he represents his mother Helena’s native Sweden in international competition, the pole vaulting community in the U.S. has been watching his development with amazement since he was in grade school.

But it is the leaps forward that he has taken in 2017, increasing his personal best by 15 inches by early April, that leave coaches grasping for an explanation.

BJ Vandrovec of Victory Athletics in Orange County, Calif., who coaches national junior record holder Rachel Baxter of Anaheim Canyon, said the vaulter everyone knows as “Mondo” has become a favorite topic of discussion.

“Everyone here is amazed by it,” Vandrovec said. “He’s like an alien.”

There are, of course, some real physics involved in Duplantis’ ability to plant a 16-foot, 5-inch pole into the box and ride its energy to jump into the equivalent of a two-story window.

The first important piece of mathematics Duplantis revealed in an interview after competing Saturday at the 59th Mt. SAC Relays in Torrance, Calif.

Greg Duplantis, Mondo’s father, sat down with a pad and pencil and calculated that his son has taken more than 30,000 jumps in his life. That huge number goes part way to explaining the confidence, body awareness and muscle memory required to execute the same high-quality vault over and over.

Johnson, who owns a career best of 19-7.50 (5.98m) from 1996, said he believes that Duplantis must be generating elite speed on the runway.

“Wherever he’s getting the performance and the height is off the ground,” Johnson said. “He’s got to be moving quicker than anybody that’s ever hit the runway before. I’d like to see the speed he’s moving in the last 5-10 meters of his (approach).”

Johnson recalls competing against Greg Duplantis on the pro circuit in the 1990s and remembers him for being one of the fastest vaulters on the runway at that time. But he also knows that Mondo Duplantis has run 23 seconds for 200 meters and mid-11 seconds for the 100.

“It doesn’t calculate into that (19-4.25) performance,” Johnson said. “I’m quite at a loss.”

Johnson, as an outside observer, also believes that Duplantis has room to improve.

“I see a ton of room for improvement,” he said. “There are so many things he can do better.”

Smooth and graceful as Duplantis is, Johnson said the vaulter that he has always considered the best technician of all-time is Russian Maksim Tarasov, a contemporary of world record holder Sergey Bubka and the No. 2 vaulter of all-time.

“He was not very fast or powerful, but from start to finish he was so smooth,” Johnson said.

Tarasov and Bubka, as well as Johnson and Greg Duplantis, used a slightly different technique for swinging up on the pole until it becomes perpendicular to the ground. They all kept their trail leg straight, like a long sweeping kick that guides their bodies into position to rotate and cross the bar.

Duplantis employs the tuck-and-shoot style of 2012 Olympic champion and indoor world record holder Renaud Lavillenie of France. After taking off, they scrunch into a ball before extending and firing out straight to the top of their flight.

A pole vaulter’s method is sometimes as individual as a fingerprint, but Johnson has never been a big believer of the tuck and shoot.

“More people have turned to that (style) because of Lavillenie,” Johnson said. “Once you tuck and shoot, as soon as you bend those legs you then have to extend the legs. Once you extend the legs you are working in the same direction as the pole, so you’re basically unloading the pole as opposed to continuing to put energy into it.”

Sanders, who coached record-setting twins Lexi and Tori Weeks as well as Andrew Irwin at the Arkansas Vault Club, said the key with tuck and shoot is to keep the hips moving. If the hips stall, the energy going up is lost. He also believes that by tucking, Duplantis can begin to rotate a bit earlier.

Duplantis, when asked for his own explanation for how he maximizes the energy he puts into the pole, pointed away from physics.

“I’m pretty fast, but I’m not blazing fast,” he said. “I have a smooth and controlled run, I think. The majority of the reason behind it is that pole vaulting is very mental. I have a good attitude when I’m planting. When I’m about to hit the box, I hit it with everything that’s in me and I just try to do whatever I can at the takeoff to push my arms out as high as I can and put everything into the pole. That’s why I get on such big poles and why I hit the takeoff so hard.”

Somewhere in the sky, literally, there is a limit for Duplantis. But no one knows where that is.

“I don’t believe anybody can accurately predict what he can do,” Johnson said. “At this point in the season, he shouldn’t be anywhere near his prime. The opportunity to catch a nice day with a tailwind behind you and some nice sticks … his consistency is just mind-boggling to me as well.”

Everyone who follows Duplantis closely has seen the YouTube video where he made 10 18-foot vaults in 11 tries in 30 minutes.

Johnson said he has a video of himself going over 19 feet 10 times in a workout at the peak of his career and wondered if he should post it to issue Duplantis a new challenge.

“With Tarasov and Bubka, I was chasing them at 19-4 and getting third place,” Johnson said. “Their consistency was unreal. (Duplantis) seems like he matches that up.”

The impact that Duplantis is having on athletes in gyms across the U.S., who are learning to pole vault, is tangible.

“My kids, my 15- and 16-footers, they are looking at him and thinking, ‘You know, I can do a lot more than I’m doing right now,’” Sanders said. “He’s opened up some doors for a lot of younger kids who put limits on themselves.

“But realistically, there might never be another kid who comes along who can do what he did. It’s just unheard of.”

Sanders said every pole vault coach is analyzing Duplantis’ jump and trying to capture its secrets.

“He’s doing this, why is he able to do this?” Sanders said. “I’m breaking down his video. He’s doing things I try to get my kids to do, but they can’t do it yet.”

On the right day, in the right conditions, Vandrovec believes 6 meters (19-8.25) is within Duplantis’ reach.

“I saw (Shawn) Barber go 6 meters, and Sam Kendricks,” Vandrovec said. “You get impressed, and here he’s 17 and doing this.”

Duplantis has a big opportunity coming up at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, where he will go head to head for the first time against Lavillenie and 2016 Olympic gold medalist Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil.

Throughout that competition, on May 27, it is a given that the phones of high school and club coaches will be buzzing.

“There’s no doubt the kid is going to be a world record holder at some point,” Sanders said. “The great thing about Mondo, yeah he’s gotten taller, but he still hasn’t started to physically mature. What happens when he gets a little bit of man strength? Oh my gosh.”