Duplantis clinches 4th straight world indoor pole vault title

Armand Duplantis won another pole vault world title after he was pushed all the way by Greece's Emmanouil Karalis. Duplantis won his fourth consecutive world indoor championships with a tournament record vault of 6.25 metres, a 10-centimetre improvement on his winning height a year ago in Nanjing.

The pair left behind the field at 6.05. Duplantis cleared his first attempts at 6.10, 6.15 and then 6.25, when he wobbled the bar. Karalis passed at 6.10 and 6.15 and missed his attempts at 6.25, finishing runner-up for a second straight year. Duplantis put away his pole, foregoing attempts at 6.32 to break his world record of 6.31 that he set last week at the Swedish meeting named after him, the Mondo Classic. “I am proud to have come through for the win. Today, it was about the battle. It was a tough competition, and that is why I didn't go for a world record,” Duplantis said.

“After all those jumps, it was difficult to go back-to-back. You only get three minutes on the clock, which is not full rest at all.”

I had some lactic acid in my legs by that point.”

Karalis was runner-up at 6.05 and Australia's Kurtis Marschall third with a personal-best 6.00, marking the first time in history that three vaulters surpassed six meters in the same indoor contest.

Simon Ehammer of Switzerland reclaimed the heptathlon title with a world record score of 6,670, adding 25 points to the previous high set in 2012 by Ashton Eaton of the US Ehammer was the world indoor champion in 2024 and runner-up last year.

Also, Zaynab Dosso of Italy won the women's 60-meter final — Olympic 100 champion Julien Alfred was third — Christopher Morales Williams of Canada and Lurdes Gloria Manuel of the Czech Republic won the men's and women's 400, and Josh Kerr of Britain the men's 3,000, six months after tearing his calf in the world outdoor 1,500 final in Tokyo.