World Indoor Athletics Championships 2025: Armand Duplantis wins third consecutive title, clears 6m for 100th time

Armand Duplantis won the men’s pole vault at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing on Saturday.

The Swedish star also known as Mondo successfully defended his title with a jump of 6.15m and wins the tournament for the third time.

This was Mundo’s seventh global title, but was made to work all the way by Karalis, who took silver with a new personal best of 6.05m.

American Sam Kendricks rounded out the podium with a best of 5.90m.

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The 25-year-old also cleared the 6.00m barrier for the 100th time and became the first athlete to do so.

He leaped over 6.05m to bring out his 100th jump over the mythical 6m mark.

To put that century mark into perspective, Ukranian vaulting legend and former world record holder Sergey Bubka achieved it just 45 times in his storied career.

Up the bar went to 6.10m. Then came a first failure for Duplantis. Karalis also dragged the bar down on his first attempt.

But Duplantis went clear on his second effort, the screaming Swede punching the air at his success.

Back boomed Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis’ catchy taverna number, but Karalis was nowhere near.

The bar went up another 5cm and a chest-pumping Duplantis made no mistake at 6.15m.

That left Karalis with one effort, but it was too far as a valiant attempt at providing Duplantis with some real face-to-face competition ended.

The Swede immediately took off his spikes in a sure indication there would be no tilt at a 12th world record after a heady night’s rivalry.

With inputs from AFP