Why Mondo Duplantis only improves his world record 1cm at a time despite proving he can go higher

Armand "Mondo" Duplantis entered the history books for the 15th time on Thursday (March 12) after using his trademark method of marginal gains at an indoor pole vault-only event.

The two-time Olympic champion cleared 6.31 metres at the Mondo Classic, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting.

It was a comfortable evening of action for the Louisiana-born Duplantis, who cleared 5.65m, 5.90m and 6.08m with relative ease before soaring over the record-breaking height on his first attempt.

"If you come to Sweden to compete against me, it will be even harder to beat me," he said after setting the record. "There are a lot of emotions right now. There was a little extra pressure because I want to perform in a different way."

Since his first record-breaking jump in February 2020, when he cleared 6.17 metres at the Copernicus Cup in Poland, Duplantis has increased the world record by a one-centimetre margin on all 15 occasions.

Duplantis' father, Greg, has previously claimed that his son could jump as high as 6.40 metres in the future, so why not attempt to clear that mark in competition?

Back in August 2024, after Duplantis broke a new world record at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Forbes reported that each athlete receives $100,000 each time a world record is broken.

However, that payout can only be received once per event, which is likely why Duplantis spaces out his world record attempts.

"An athlete such as Duplantis who recognises this understands that they can maximise their financial return by waiting to break the world record again," added the report.

According to reports, Duplantis' sponsors Puma also award bonuses for breaking world records, as per the BBC.

As mentioned above, Duplantis' father, who competed in the pole vault and had a best of 5.80m, believes his son has a long road ahead of him.

"I don't think he's at his peak right now," he told Red Bull. "He's only 24 and pole vaulters typically peak in their late 20s to early 30s."

"He's still getting stronger and I think he's going to be better in four years than he is now. He's already jumping higher than anyone ever has and to predict how high he can jump is crazy. This probably does sound crazy, but I think he can get close to 6.40m. If not 6.40m. But it will require a lot of work."

Duplantis himself says he tries not to put a limit on what can be achieved.

"Improvement is harder to come by now, in every aspect, not just performance but all the little things," he said. "I keep an open mind and if I can put together everything in the right way, things can happen."