Swedish pole vault star and reigning Wanda Diamond League champion made history on Monday as he broke the world record for the third time in his career with a scintillating 6.19m jump at the Belgrade Indoor Meeting.
It was a record which had seemed inevitable for a long time, with Duplantis coming close to clearing the same mark outdoors on numerous occasions on the Diamond League circuit in the last two seasons.
The 22-year-old picked up five meeting records as he chased down the record last season, coming within millimetres on several occasions on his way to a first Diamond Trophy.
As he looks ahead to another record-breaking season in 2022, here are some of the highlights from Duplantis’ Diamond League road to 6.19m.
Seven wins in 2020
Duplantis first broke the world record with a 6.17m in Torun, Poland in February 2020, before adding another centimetre a week later in Glasgow.
That put him in fine fettle heading into the truncated 2020 Wanda Diamond League season, and he duly picked up seven of a possible eight victories that summer.
They included two Diamond League records: an impressive 6.07m at the Wanda Diamond League exhibition event in Lausanne and a breathtaking 6.15m at the Pietro Mennea Golden Gala in Rome.
The latter mark was the highest any vaulter had ever cleared outdoors, making Duplantis the holder of both the official and the unofficial outdoor world record.
With the coronavirus putting paid to a full season, there was no title up for grabs in 2020, meaning Duplantis had to wait another year to get his hands on the Diamond Trophy.
Watch: Duplantis’ record-breaking 6.15m in Rome in 2020
Five near misses in 2021
Despite a surprise defeat in miserable weather conditions at the season opener in Gateshead, Duplantis cruised to the title with five wins in 2021, picking up meeting records in Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Brussels and Zurich.
But victories and meeting records are Duplantis’ bread and butter, and they were not going to satisfy him as he charged towards an inevitable Diamond Trophy.
Every time he won last season, the Swede asked for the bar to be raised to 6.19m, so he could have a go at breaking his own world record.
After two valiant efforts in Oslo and Stockholm, he came within a whisker of clearing the height in Paris.
Another near miss in Brussels was followed by a dramatic season finale in Zurich, in which Duplantis was the last man standing at the end of a bumper, two-day Diamond League Final.
Having swept away the competition and claimed his first series title, Duplantis gave the fans in the Letzigrund an unexpected bonus track as he attacked 6.19m long after the main programme had finished, delaying the trophy ceremony while the other Diamond League champions cheered him on from the sidelines.
His first attempt was the closest, and though it wasn’t to be for Duplantis, there was a suspicion that it was only a matter of time before he did break the 6.19m mark.
So it proved in Belgrade this week, and the question now is: can Duplantis go even better this season?
The 22-year-old will launch his title defence in Doha on May 13th, and he will no doubt have another world record in his sights when he does so.