Swedish Pole Vaulter Duplantis Breaks World Record 12th Time in Stockholm

Swedish pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis broke his own world record for the 12th time by clearing 6.28 meters at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm, a feat celebrated as one of his biggest goals. The 25-year-old Olympic champion has a unique strategy of incrementally raising the world record by just one centimetre each time to maximize prize money, earning approximately $1.2 million over five years, since athletes receive $100,000 for breaking the record once per meeting. Duplantis’s dominance in the sport is unrivaled, with very few competitors able to challenge him, though a 12-year-old Ukrainian phenom, Matvey Strogalev, recently broke one of Duplantis’s youth records, hinting at future competition. Duplantis’s 2025 season continues to impress with a World Indoor Championships title and the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award, and he is now focused on the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. The Stockholm Olympic Stadium, the site of this latest record, adds historical significance, having hosted the 1912 Games. This methodical approach to breaking records by small margins follows a precedent set by pole vault legends Sergey Bubka and Yelena Isinbayeva, making Duplantis’s achievements both a sporting and strategic marvel.