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The pole vault competition was two hours and 20 minutes old when Mondo Duplantis finally got serious at these World Athletics Championships. The bar had just been pushed six metres. And so Mondo reached into his kitbag and dug out the shoe he calls “the Claw”.
It is a special shoe, with a spike protruding from the end of it, which he only takes it out when he sniffs a world record lurking in the air.
At that point five men were still fighting for the world title. But after Duplantis had cleared 6.10m and 6.15m the gold medal was his. Now the bar was pushed to 6.30m and Swede’s 14th world record was on.
Duplantis puts on “the Claw” shoes because it means that in his 20 strides, he can get up to speed quicker, plant the pole quicker and get even higher – providing the technique is right. But he doesn’t wear the shoe all the time because the first version, introduced last year, had a metal spike that would sometimes lacerate his hand or arm on the way down.
Nowadays the spike is protected by a plastic cover. But Duplantis has a routine. And he wanted to stick to it.
The Swede’s first attempt failed by the tiniest of margins. The second was even closer. As he prepared for the final attempt, the Greek athlete Emmanouil Karalis, who had taken silver with a six metre clearance, blew a fan in his face.
It was time. And Duplantis was armed with a second weapon – a stiffer pole to help him get higher. The crowd roared and then gasped. Duplantis was over. And soon he was charging around the track and punching the sky, with half-a-dozen TV cameramen trying to chase him down.
He ran to his fiancee Desiré Inglander and kissed her. Then he told the 60,000 crowd he loved them too.
“I am just so happy,” he said. “I wanted to come back to Tokyo because I knew it was a wonderful city. But it’s better than I ever imagined. Thank you guys so much, this was the biggest dream ever come true to me.”
And, at the Paris Olympics last year, the millions watching around the world felt privileged to share it with him too.
