Duplantis wins Budapest pole vault, misses world record bid

Budapest, July 15 (IANS) Olympic champion and world record holder Armand Duplantis won the men’s pole vault at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial, the last World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting of 2026, clearing 6.07 metres before narrowly missing a world record attempt at 6.32 metres.

Six men were still vaulting with the bar at 6.00 m, three of them – Kurtis Marschall, Emmanouil Karalis and Sondre Guttormsen – having cleared 5.90 m.

Duplantis failed his first attempt at 6.00 m, before Marschall became the first to clear it, doing so for the first time outdoors after twice achieving the height indoors. It was also the 300th six-metre vault in history.

Duplantis responded by clearing 6.00m on his second attempt to move into the lead, then consolidated his advantage with a first-time clearance at 6.07m. Marschall attempted that height but was unsuccessful.

With victory secured, Duplantis raised the bar to 6.32m. It wasn’t to be this time, but the Swedish world record-holder now has 136 clearances at 6.00m or higher.

“I’ll be back here in September as an ambassador for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship,” Duplantis said. “I hope to break the world record again. That’s always my ultimate goal.”

Meanwhile, Ja’Kobe Tharp confirmed his status as the new force in sprint hurdling with a stunning 12.85 (-0.4m/s) victory in the men’s 110m hurdles.

The US hurdler, who set a surprise world record of 12.75 in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships last month, produced the fifth-fastest performance in history in the Hungarian capital and did so with a display that suggested there could be more to come.

Tharp won by 0.16, easing slightly to celebrate before the line and making some of the world’s best hurdlers almost look ordinary.

Jamal Britt, a regular sub-13 performer this season, was a distant second in 13.01, while world champion Cordell Tinch finished third in a season’s best of 13.06.

The win also allowed Tharp to avenge his defeat to Britt at the Eugene Diamond League, where Britt won in 12.86 from Tharp’s 12.91. Budapest marked Tharp’s fourth consecutive race inside 13 seconds, a streak that began with his world record in the NCAA semifinals and continued with his NCAA final victory in 12.90.

–IANS

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