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Plenty of sports stars strive for perfection. In 2025, Mondo Duplantis achieved it. He broke the pole vault world record four times. Retained his world indoor and outdoor titles. Won all 16 competitions that he entered. Was voted World Athletics’ male athlete of the year. And, for good measure, was named the BBC’s overseas personality of the year too.
“There’s not necessarily such a thing as a perfect season,” Duplantis says on a bright December day in Monaco. He pauses. “But that’s as perfect as it can get.”
Sporting dominance can eventually become sterile or dull. Think tiki-taka-era Spain. Or Mercedes-era Lewis Hamilton. Duplantis, though, remains track and field’s greatest magic trick. How, you ask, will he clear a bar that is not far off the height of an average British house? But then he charges down the runway, plants and twists and flips, and makes his audience gasp yet again.
And, on special occasions, the stuntman’s instinct to push the limits is fused with a leading actor’s ability to steal a scene. At the Paris Olympics last year, after Duplantis had broken his own world record, he then charged across the track to passionately kiss his fiancee, the model and content creator Desiré Inglander. The cameras captured every frame. The clip went viral. And suddenly the Swede was a global celebrity as well as a double Olympic gold medallist.
How much did that moment change your life, I ask, and how often are you recognised now? “Night and day,” Duplantis replies. “It’s all the time. I feel like there are so many people that know me without even knowing me, which is very weird. It’s not necessarily that 100% of people recognise me on the street. But a lot of people know the clip and the moment.”
However Duplantis insists the celebration was completely spontaneous, fuelled only by adrenaline and unbridled joy. “It wasn’t planned,” he says. “It just happened. That’s probably why it went so viral. People could feel how pure it was. You can’t really write that. It was just a pure moment of passion, success, glory and love, all at the same time – a crazy combination. It’s one of these things you never really fully understand. It’s storybook stuff. It’s not like real life. It feels fictional.”
At the world championships in Tokyo this year, Duplantis repeated the trick: breaking the world record on his final jump with a 6.30m clearance before kissing Inglander again. This time he was helped by a super-speedy and grippy shoe he calls “the Claw” – because it has a spike protruding from the front of it like a medieval torture device. A faster version, he says, is on the way, which he believes can help him eventually go over 6.40m.
“It’s simple physics,” he says. “Energy in and energy out. If you can put more energy in and you’re faster, then you create more energy to get it out. I believe that I differentiate myself from the rest of the field in every aspect of the jump, but I think I separate myself the most on the runway, on the speed.” That is where the Claw Mark II comes in.
Not that Duplantis is testing it himself. Instead he is relying on his friend, the 400m hurdles world record holder Karsten Warholm, and the Norwegian’s coach Leif Olav Alnes to put the work in for him. “They are crazy science maniacs,” he says, laughing. “They go to Vietnam always to do super-testing. I’m not very analytical at all, actually. But I know if a shoe is the fastest one for him, it’s going to be the fastest one for me because we have a similar foot-striking pattern.”
Duplantis is only 26. There could easily be another 10 world records to add to the 14 he has already earned. Most probably, another couple of Olympic titles as well, by the age of 33. At that age, I suggest, Alexander the Great was said to have cried because there were no more worlds to conquer. Does Duplantis harbour similar fears?
He shakes his head. “Oh, I will have everything to conquer,” he says. “You still have to have a life and some ambition. I will push myself to be productive and find some other meaning.”
Duplantis points to his burgeoning career as a music artist. His first song, Bop, has been listened to over 2.2m times on Spotify. His second, 4L, another 1.2m times. A third single is coming in January and it is rumoured that he will also perform the official song for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in September.
However, Duplantis is no mere novelty act doing it for the money: not Sweden’s answer to Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle, say, or Carl Lewis going disco after the LA Games. He is serious about developing his craft.
“It’s truly an escape for me from athletics and everything in the world,” he says. “When I play golf, nothing else matters apart from that next shot. It’s the same in the studio. I’m just trying to finish whatever this conversation that we’re having in this song, in this demo. I’m just trying to find the path.
“I have a very obsessive attitude and behaviour. So it’s very common that I get really locked in, and I find myself getting a few missed texts from Desiré asking where I’m at, because she’s waiting for me to come home. Because I just have a really good time with it.”
Duplantis’s golf handicap is a highly respectable 11, but for now working on his swing is on the backburner. “The music thing has stopped the golf,” he says. “In order to have a healthy relationship, I have to pick one hobby. You can’t have two hobbies where you’re out of the house for six hours a day, when I already do all my other stuff too. If I played golf and made music all the time, then I wouldn’t probably be getting married next year.”
Longer term, Duplantis is even mulling over the idea of a career in sports politics. He certainly has the charisma for it. Watching him in Monaco, it was impressive how he spoke to everyone from dignitaries like Prince Albert II to fans wanting to say hello. He engaged. He listened. And his star power would inevitably win more than a few votes.
“I’ll be the new Seb Coe,” he says. “I’ll speak it into existence.” Duplantis has a smile on his face, but he is not entirely flippant. “Honestly, why not?” he asks. “The older I get, the more keen I am.
“Right now, pole vaulting is my main focus. But I want to grow track and field as much as I can because athletics is the No 1 Olympic sport. So by the time I’m in my 40s, and I’ve had more life lessons, I think I would be in a good position to help this sport.”
A future career as World Athletics president is still some way off, especially when he still has fresh worlds to conquer in the event he has utterly dominated throughout this decade. “The hunger and the motivation is 100% still there,” he promises. “And I have had the dinner, so it’s just all dessert now.”
