Any athlete, from any discipline, will think the same: pole vaulters are unique.
On the athletics track, pole vaulters do the vertical and walk upside down. Sometimes they advance like this for twenty or thirty meters.
They also jump at the same time, turn on their axis and perform backflips.
At airports, pole management is a mouthful. They must be billed separately: the poles are lengthened to four or five meters and each pole vaulter carries several, at least a pair. If the trip is by coach, the poles go on board and rest in the aisle: they do not fit in the hold. On long journeys, there are pole vaulters who lie down in that corridor and doze hugging their elongated creatures. No pole vaulter can get into a taxi, not with his child in his arms.
Some pole vaulters injure themselves by dislocating their shoulder while bending and twisting on the pole. And they fall onto the mat from a height similar to that of two stories. Sometimes the pole breaks and then they fall on the irons of the structure, or on the synthetic.
If that happens, they can hurt themselves very hard.
Pole vaulters speak a different language, the language of the gymnast or the acrobat.
Between them, they understand each other.
However, when contemplating and analyzing Armand Duplantis (23), the king of the pole vaulters, the Swede who a week ago surpassed the bar by 6.23m, his seventh absolute world record, someone says:
–Well, I don't understand it.
Well, after all, if pole vaulters are unique in their kind, Duplantis is unique among pole vaulters.
(...)
Alberto lobito Ruiz (61) has spent half his life up there, bending the bar, traveling the world, breaking Spanish records (in the 80s, he raised our country's record from 5.40m to 5.61, a real Bubka the Spanish way) and competing in the Olympic Games. He was in Los Angeles'84 and Barcelona'92. The little wolf was a member of that golden generation, the one that left men's athletics in the forefront: Abascal and González, Trabado, Corgos, Prieto, Ortiz and Becker, Moracho and Sala, Sánchez and Cornet, Alonso Valero, Marín and Llopart, Arques, García Chico...
Now, a coach at the CAR of Sant Cugat since 2017, the little wolf directs a range of specialists from our country, such as Aleix Pi and Maialen Axpe, the current national champions. And from the altar of knowledge of him, he says:
–Let me tell you something: if you want me to give you an explanation as to why Duplantis jumps so high, I will tell you that I don't know. Duplantis is not two meters tall (1.81), he is not a tall guy (79 kilos) and his jumps are not technically perfect either.
–¿...?
–It's as if we were talking about Michael Jordan or Messi. They are neither tall nor strong, and yet they break records or achieve feats.
We proclaim that Duplantis is the new Sergei Bubka (35 records were broken by the Ukrainian during the time of the little wolf). However, his drift is very different. Bubka is a product of the Soviet school of Vitaly Petrov (like Obiena or Thiago Braz), just as Renaud Lavillenie comes from the French school or Piotr Lisek from the Polish one. Bubka was an extraordinarily muscular and technically gifted jumper.
Duplantis is loaded with shoulders, he is not presumed to have any prowess in the gym, he trained on the mat in the backyard of the family home in Lafayette (Louisiana). He learned by listening to his father, Greg (also a pole vaulter in his day: he jumped 5.88m), and his mother, Helena, who had been a heptathlete and directs the prodigy's physical preparation. He learned by fighting with his three brothers, fighting with them to see who would go higher, repeating virtues and vices.
In the home playground there was no ball, no baseball glove, no basket. There was a jumping hall, a mat and several sets of poles of different sizes.
Duplantis does not belong to the American school (where he was born) or the Swedish school (his nationality). She belongs to the Duplantis school.
–And that's why he does things that we don't understand and that only he does – says the little wolf.
-For example?
–When he approaches the box, he lowers the pole and drags it over the synthetic for one meter, until he nails it and rises. We haven't seen any other pole vaulters do that and we don't see them getting any advantage from it either. I guess he learned it as a child, and that's it: Duplantis jumps in his own way.
–So, where do all these wonders come from? Doesn't it have virtues?
“Of course, of course,” says the little wolf.
And it is explained.
A high-level pole vaulter usually records 18 strides on the aisle before sticking the pole into the box and rising.
–Many go with 16 steps –he says–. Duplantis goes with twenty. Sometimes even at 22.
And the fact is important, because the pole vaulter only nails the pole when reaching his maximum speed: that means that Duplantis can reach speeds higher than the rest.
–If we analyze it in physics, Duplantis nails the pole at a speed of more than 10 m/s. And we know it because the cells say it all. In my time, there were few measuring cells. And notice what I'm telling you: a long jumper also rises above 10 m/s, like Duplantis. Only he doesn't carry a pole weighing two kilos and 5.20 m long!
–At what speed did Bubka enter his day?
–Close to 10 m/s, but not above that speed. A pole vaulter who is around 5.70m can reach around 9.6 m/s. I entered at 9 m/s. And that parameter is trained, but it has an innate component.
–Perhaps, having been trained since he was a child... –it is pointed out.
–There are many pole vaulters jumping since they were three years old, so that thought doesn't convince me. What I can tell you is that his approach and entry technique, without being exceptional or belonging to a school, and his speed allow him to handle a type of ultra-hard pole and rise above the rest.
(And he points out that technology has not advanced much in the pole: the tools are similar to those of forty years ago. The Duplantis UCS Spirit model comes from 1987 and in all this time it has barely been modified. As in the formula of the Coca-Cola, its percentage of carbon fiber and fiberglass is unknown; in any case, it was already used by Bubka, García Chico and the little wolf himself).
–And mentally?
–There is the big change. Many jump since they were children, but no one does it like him. He never has problems, he always nails it. 90% of pole vaulters get scared when moving to harder poles, which is inevitable as you get older and stronger. Duplantis has never been intimidated by that. He has not had a crisis of confidence and that, in a discipline designed for kamikazes, makes him a killer to the nth degree.
–And its limit?
–It was said that Bubka was worth 6.20m (he rose to 6.15) because he could be seen above the bar. It is said that Duplantis could go up to 6.35, although those are twelve more world records, since these records are broken inch by inch: it is normal and, of course, more money is generated. Will we see 6.35? Don't know.
