Duplantis RUINED pole vault the same way Bolt ruined the 100m

Finally, someone who gets it.

Is this Khoberger?

It's kind of hard to break the LJ record one centimeter at a time...

Least competitive event in track & field, sorry not sorry 😘

You can have all the body control in the world, but speed, height and arm length are the end determining factor for how much potential you have in PV. 5'3" gymnasts won't touch elite pole vault heights

EXACTLY. We’re talking numbers only when we say “least competitive event” right? (although hello, decathlon!) Few people even try the pole vault. Everybody and their grandmother can run 100 m. Mondo is 5’ 11” 175 lbs… hey, you should pick up PV and make some easy $$! Minimal competition… I bet you’d slay…

ps I’m not a pole vaulter

Duplantis and Bolt didn’t ruin anything. They got people excited about their individual sports again - people rarely spoke about the pole vault until Duplantis came along. The only thing I would say is that with the approach Duplantis takes of only inching up his world record by a cm at a time is that if he does that right through his career he might miss the opportunity to see what he could really achieve.

y’all are mad at someone for purely dominating their event? so what no one has the unction the actually compete and challenge the dude. he’s just that guy.

Yeah, watching a generational talent just RUINS the event. 🙄

They need to stop giving him athlete of the year if he keeps breaking it by 1cm. Too much luxury in being able to choose your own record. Imagine if sprinters or distance runners were able to 'program' their bodies to break the record by no more than 100th of a second just so they can break it more often.

Good point! Do you think that's why China's athlete factories haven't produced a world class pole vaulter yet - that the ones with long parents are discarded early?

BTW: Don't be surprised if one or both of those two young Norwegian guys on their way up to the absolute top will share the podium with Duplantis already in Budapest or Paris - kinda like those two Norweigian guys overtaking triathlon. Norway have the best sports institute in the world nowadays (think Nike resources times many, with the most outdoorsy western nation behind them, no in-nation contradiction interests, a trillion dollar budget surplus to finance the whole thing, and a chip on their shoulder about sticking it (in anything anywhere) to their next door neighbours the Swedes).

Yes I recall Bolt turning up to a Diamond League meeting at the height of his fame, i think it was Rome and the BBC news showing scenes reminiscent of Beatlemania. I shook my head sadly at the terribly negative effects of Bolt making athletics interesting and relevant to people in football-obsessed Italy.

Powell has held the record longer than Beamon ever did.

8.95 is one of the least touchable records in track and field, up there with 3:26.00, but Powell wasn't even the greatest long jumper of his era. So it is a little different. Not Carl's biggest fan but it's pretty obvious Powell was never quite the best jumper in history at any point in time (when you consider Olympic and WC golds, longevity, consistency over 8.50m, or 8.70, or any threshold, etc.)

Beamon destroyed the record by nearly two feet, while Powell won the competition in which he broke the world record by less than two inches.

What's to ruin? Pole vault is silly. Who can launch themselves highest with a bending, elastical stick. Who was trained this niche skill since early childhood by their elite parent. Big deal!

Even sillier is that this was adapted from pole vaulting for distance, which is not silly. The Dutch people use it to cross from island to island in their swampy homeland.

Yea, I hate it when sombody transcends the event, gets excited and does a front flip on the track, then high fives and hugs all his competitors. That is terrible for the sport. (Eye roll here).

He could do that on his own in his backyard. Ever see his video from Lafayette on YouTube in his backyard on the hoverboard pole vaulting?

Sure but it wouldn’t be an official world record.