Mondo Duplantis Named Finalist for ‘World Athlete of the Year’ Award
Lafayette native Mondo Duplantis is up for a pretty prestigious award.
The world-class pole vaulter is one of five finalists for Male Athlete of the Year, which is awarded by World Athletics.
The former LSU athlete set his first pole vault world record of the year on February 8 in Poland. There he cleared 6.17 meters indoors at the Orlen Copernicus Cup, which broke the previous record from 2014.
"I've wanted to break the world record since I was three years old," Duplantis said at the time. "There's no secret to what I do; I just put in a lot of hard work. I can't thank my parents enough for helping me to get to where I'm at now. All the support I had from everybody is the reason why I did this."
Then just one week later, he topped his indoor world record to 6.18 meters in Glasgow at the Muller Grand Prix.
On September 17, Mondo became the outdoor pole vault world record holder as he cleared 6.15 meters at the Diamond League Rome meeting. That broke the previous record of 6.15 meters, which stood since 1994.
Duplantis finished his 2020 season with a perfect 16-0 record in pole vault events.
Other finalists for Male World Athlete of the Year include Joshua Cheptegei, Ryan Crouser, Johannes Vetter, and Karsten Warholm.
The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2020, a virtual event on December 5.