Field Level Media - Professional sports content solutions | FLM

PARIS — Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis broke his own world record in the pole vault by clearing 6.25 meters on Monday.

Duplantis retained his Olympic pole vault title with ludicrous ease, needing only four successful attempts to take gold with 6.00 meters, before clearing an Olympic record 6.10 for fun.

He proceeded to break his own world record for the eighth time since 2020 when he cleared 6.25 meters, just outdoing the 6.24 meters he cleared at an event last April.

Duplantis entered the fray at 5.70, and promptly cleared it by about a meter. He sat out 5.80 then flew easily over 5.85, as others all around him were starting to fall by the wayside.

He then cleared 6.00 — the ultimate target for most vaulters — as if he was warming up, and that was all he needed.

American Sam Kendricks, the 2017 and 2019 world champion and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID after his arrival and spoke this week about the turmoil he suffered as brands considered him “damaged goods.”

The pent-up emotion exploded when he equaled his season’s best of 5.95, but he could not get over 6.00 meters with three attempts, leaving Duplantis as the winner on that height, without a fail. Kendricks took silver.

Emmanouil Karalis, 24, cleared his personal best of 5.93 this season and was delighted to get over 5.90. His attempts at 5.95 and 6.00 never looked convincing but he was delighted with his bronze having finished joint-fourth in Tokyo.

It was Greece’s fourth bronze in the event but first since 1956.

DISCUS DOMINANCE

Valarie Allman of the United States captured her second consecutive Olympic women’s discus gold medal, unleashing a 69.50-meter effort on her fourth throw.

The 29-year-old’s mark was nearly two meters better than China’s Feng Bin, who took silver with 67.51.

Former double Olympic and world champion Sandra Elkasevic of Croatia also threw 67.51 but had to settle for bronze because Feng’s second-best effort topped the Croatian’s.

Allman followed her Tokyo gold with back-to-back world titles in 2022 and 2023 and is unbeaten this season.

Having gold locked up before her final throw, the American stepped into the circle to huge applause and, after hurling the discus 69.21, sprinted to her coach and leapt into his arms.

OTHER EVENTS

Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson delivered a command performance to win the gold medal in the Olympic 800 metres and claim her first global title.

Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma won silver in a stunning Olympic debut, with Kenya’s Mary Moraa taking bronze.

The fastest in the world over the distance this year, 22-year-old Hodgkinson took the lead halfway through the first lap and comfortably held off an attack from Duguma to finish in one minute 56.72 seconds.

Hodgkinson had arrived in Paris on a high and was heavy favorite to win gold. She set a new personal best of 1:54.61 in London three weeks ago, a result that made her the sixth-fastest woman of all time over two laps.

“It’s something that I’ve dreamed of so much it hasn’t actually sunk in yet,” Hodgkinson told reporters.

“The crowd was just absolutely incredible, it felt like a home Olympics for me. It just made the moment super special and I’m super happy,” she added.

Hodgkinson had said she was excited to “just let myself go for it” in the final, and she did just that, unleashing a fierce kick in the last straight to see off Duguma.

She had tears in her eyes as she crossed the finish line and became the first Briton to win Olympic 800m gold since Kelly Holmes in 2004.

Hodgkinson won silver in Tokyo when she was just 19, and had high hopes of victory in Paris after also taking silver in the 2022 and 2023 world championships.

Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet won the gold medal in the women’s Olympic 5,000 meters as she sprinted home to claim the title after a textbook performance.

Chebet won in a time of 14 minutes 28.56 seconds as the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan (14:30.61) claimed silver and Italian Nadia Battocletti took bronze (14:31.64).

Chebet produced a thrilling finish to win the first medal for her country at the Paris Olympics and smiled wide as she crossed the line after an exhausting performance.

Kenyan Faith Kipyegon had finished second in 14:29.60 but was later disqualified.

The runner-up at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and bronze medalist in Budapest last year, Chebet took the early lead and hung in with Kipyegon through much of the race.

She kept her cool as Kipyegon collided at the start of the penultimate lap with Ethiopian world record holder Gudaf Tsegay, who grimaced but continued, and accelerated from there.

Tokyo champion Hassan was in fifth place heading into the final 400 and dug deep to try to hang onto her Olympic crown but could not match the Kenyans’ speed around the final turn.

Chebet hugged and cheered with Kipyegon as the pair donned Kenyan flags to wild cheers from the packed Stade de France.

It quickly became clear, however, that Kipyegon would not join her on the podium as her name disappeared from the results list and she was later marked disqualified, dissolving the joy.

–Reuters, Special to Field Level Media