In front of a home crowd, with family in the stands and perfect weather conditions, there were expectations of another Diamond League victory, and perhaps even a new world record. Instead, it was an unusually difficult evening for pole vault star Armand Duplantis.
"This could be a good thing. I could need it. I've won every competition for three years now and it's absolutely insane, so this might be needed," he says, and continues:
"But it's about everyone who's here looking at me, that's what I'm sad about."
“Very bad”
The competition got off to a shaky start when Duplantis failed his first attempt at 5.60 m, a height he normally clears without major problems. However, the Swede corrected the mistake immediately and cleared the bar on the next jump.
He then cleared 5.80 m without any problems, but when the bar was raised to 6.00 m, things stopped. Two failed attempts were followed by a last attempt at 6.05 m, but the bar fell there too.
"I jumped really badly. It was uneven and every jump was different. I had trouble with the poles and other technical stuff. I'm just lost in my head," Duplantis says.
“Not invited yet”
That opened the door for Australian Kurtis Marschall, who secured the victory after clearing 5.90 m. This also ended Duplantis' long winning streak. The Swede had previously racked up 40 straight competition wins over a period of almost three years.
"I probably won't be invited to the wedding now if I don't give him a wedding present with all the prize money he just gave me," the winner, Kurtis Marschall, says with a laugh.
The wedding Marschall is talking about will be held in Cannes next weekend. Then Armand Duplantis will marry his fiancée Desiré Inglander. Therefore, a break from competing awaits. Duplantis will not participate in next week's Diamond League gala in Oslo. The 26-year-old believes that wedding thoughts haunted his mind during the competition.
"I believe so. You get lucky in gambling or lucky in love. It feels so true right now. Almost like it happened this way on purpose. It's strange," Duplantis says.
The last time Duplantis left a competition without being at the top of the results list was at the gala in Monaco in the summer of 2023. Then he was troubled by problems with the back of his thigh and finished in fourth place.
