Red Bull (who sponsors Mondo) calls Mondo the pole vaulting Usain Bolt. Is that a fair comparison?

Yes. As Mondo go high and be great. As Bolt run fast and be great. As both win gold medals. As both have world records. Ofa lon teh.

I’m no sprint and field expert, but what makes the analogy silly is that almost every able bodied person will sprint at some point in their lives, while a tiny, tiny fraction will ever attempt the pole vault. So being exceptionally good at such a contrived, niche event is totally lame compared with being the fastest sprinter of all time.

For a "contrived, niche" event, pole vault takes incredible technique and athleticism. The reason most don't try is they can't do it, Mondo is field's greatest superstar right now much like Bolt was track's greatest star

Yes, it is a very appropriate comparison.

Yes.

Mondo is in his own league.

Crouser and Rojas are just as great, arguably better.

Sure, it’s impressive and it requires incredible technique and athleticism. Of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that compared with sprinting it’s a contrived, niche event. Comparing Mondo to the world’s best tight rope walker would honestly be a better comparison.

I mean, Bolt never broke the World Record as many times as Duplantis, right?

Yes, but unlike other events, pole vaulters and high jumpers can choose their marks to clear so they can have more WRs. 1cm in high jump is also more difficult than 1cm in the pole vault.

I'm not taking away Mondo's achievements though.

Not close in terms of impact although he is extremely dominant. Mondo is closer to Jakob than Kipchoge and a mile away from Bolt.

Disagreed at first but now I think it's fair, actually. Bolt didn't change the way people run the 100 but he brought out an entirely new era of competitiveness in the 100/200. The times it took to win in 2012 while he was in his competitive prime were unlike anything that had ever been seen in the events before.

Mondo is just really, really, really good. The bar hasn't necessarily been raised (no pun intended, but now that I think about it, is that where the saying comes from?) and we aren't seeing some sort of golden age of pole vault, just absolute domination by Mondo.

Athletes like Ryan Crouser, speaking in % improvement on their competitors, are far clear of Bolt and get literally no recognition comparatively. Not to mention he's self coached and invented his current technique

But Bolt could have lowered the WR in the same way.. gone 9.64, 9.63, 9.62, 9.61, etc. and did not.

Bolt should have contrived to beat his WR by 0.01 over and over and over again. It was such an error to go 9.6 and then 9.5 in back to back years.

Red Bull is a marketing team 🤡🤡

Let's see:

- Child prodigies who rewrote the record books as youngsters

- Have won everything they can compete for multiple times

- Unbeatable and way above the rest on their best day

- Have surpassed the previous GOATs in their sport

- Transcended to iconic status and have put their countries on the T&F map

Yeah, I'd say it's a fair comparison.