With gold medals around his neck and the Greek flag wrapped around his back, Militadis Tentoglou stood high and proud this year as he won two gold medals for the Men’s Long Jump category in the World Athletics Championships and Zurich Diamond League 2023. In an interview with Olympics.com, Tentoglou disclosed his motivation for his winning streaks this year.
On Aug 24, the spectators in Budapest witnessed Tentoglou win in the Men’s Long Jump category with the greatest leap of the evening. Jamaica’s Wayne Pinnock, who initially led the competition, couldn’t believe it as Tentoglou even recorded a foul in his second attempt. But in one single leap in the final round, Tentoglou managed to turn the tables when he soared to 8.52 m, brushing past Pinnock’s record and taking home the gold medal for Greece.
Tentoglou calls his last jumps as “miracle jumps”:
“I always believe that the last jump is special for every jumper because it’s all the emotions and the adrenaline and it’s your last chance to do something. I like to call it the miracle jump and I believe that every athlete can do a big one or their best one in the last attempt,”
Just a week after his win in Budapest, Tentoglou went on to compete in the Zurich Diamond League to achieve another gold medal. With a stunning jump of 8.20 m, the greek athlete defeated Jamaica’s Tajay Gayle with 8.07 m and USA’s Jarrion Lawson with 8.05 m.
Tentoglou revealed that aside from his fierce competitors, there was one other thing that pushed him to do his best:
“I think losing gives motivation. It happened to me also last year. I lost, and it gave me motivation to be better, to not do a competition like this again,” Tentoglou told us. “Of course I lose every year I lose. It’s impossible to win every single thing, and no one is undefeated. It gives you motivation, and that’s important.”
It turned out that losing to China’s Wang Jianan by a margin of four centimeters last year at the World Athletics Championships 2022 ignited his ambition. His failure to win first place at that time may have marked a major setback for him, but it definitely served as the driving force behind his success this year.
Armand Duplantis reaches new heights at Prefontaine Classic
Armand Duplantis’ triumphant ascent at the Prefontaine Classic marks the culmination of a lengthy journey to achieve greatness.
Since the Brussels Diamond League, Duplantis has relentlessly pursued the goal of surpassing his own world record of 6.22 meters. During that event, the Swedish-American athlete openly criticized his performance, deeming his jumps as subpar. While he managed to clear an impressive 6.10 meters, his three subsequent attempts at 6.23 meters proved unsuccessful.
“I had it in me to jump the world record today and I really thought I was going to do it. It’s a shame but my jumps were lousy,” Duplantis said of his performance in Brussels.
Despite this result, Armand Duplantis still came out victorious in Brussels, with Sam Kendricks in second place and EJ Obiena in third place.
Armand Duplantis’ history of breaking records
Duplantis is considered a “titan” when it comes to Pole Vault competitions. In February of 2020, he cleared an impressive 6.17 meters in Torun and broke Lavillenie’s previous world record of 6.16 meters when he was just twenty years old.
In the subsequent years, his dominance in the sport remained unchallenged.
Duplantis consistently pushed the boundaries, relentlessly striving to surpass his own records, ultimately solidifying his reign as the unrivaled pole vault champion.
Prior to the Prefontaine Classic, Duplantis had shattered his own record an astounding six times within a mere three-year timeframe.
Armand Duplantis’ Seventh World Record at Hayward Field
At the Diamond League, there was much anticipation for athletes to break world records that day. For the 200 meters, it was Jackson who tried to beat the 35-year old record of Flo-Jo. For Duplantis, it was his own record of 6.22 meters that he was trying to surpass.
All eyes were on Armand Duplantis on September 17. The audience and his competitors were all aware of his goal.
In his first attempt, Duplantis immediately cleared the 6.23-meter mark. Finally reaching his goal for the season, he bounced off the mat and ran across the stands, throwing his hands in the air in celebration.
“I’m usually pretty excited for those world records because they feel good. What else can you say really?” Duplantis told reporters.
“It was a crazy way to end the year, I’ve never had an ending like this.”, he added.
Duplantis also revealed what he hopes to accomplish at the end of his professional life.
“By the end of my career, I hope to definitely have the bar up there that I think is the highest that I could have possibly achieved.”
Mondo Duplantis has proven once again that he is one of the best athletes of this generation. The Swedish pole vault star surpassed his own world record with a massive clearance of 6.25 metres in the third and final attempt at the Paris Olympics.
Duplantis’ performance took place at the Stade de France in Paris, where the athlete broke the record for the ninth time in his career, demonstrating his unwavering dominance in this sport.
He went over the bar on his third attempt at breaking the world record, and after failing in his first two attempts, he leaped to his feet and ran to the stands to hug his family to share his joy at his victory.
The athlete declared: “I haven’t processed how fantastic that moment was… It’s one of those things that don’t really feel real, such an out-of-body experience. It’s still hard to kind of land right now.”
“What can I say? I just broke a world record at the Olympics, biggest possible stage for a pole vaulter. The biggest dream since I was a kid was to break the world record at the Olympics, and I’ve been able to do that in front of the most ridiculous crowd I’ve ever competed in front of,” Duplantis added.
Defending his Olympic medals
Before his world record was cleared, Duplantis had already secured the gold medal, adding to his three world championship crowns and successfully defended the title he won at the Tokyo Olympics.
Sam Kendricks of the USA placed second with a 5.95-metre vault, while Emmanouil Karalis of Greece placed third with a 5.9-metre vault. However, Duplantis was the unquestioned winner of this competition, as he has been in many others.
With a chance to break the world record, Duplantis thrilled the audience with his first-ever clearance of 6.10 metres, beating off Thiago Braz of Brazil for the Olympic record. After hitting the bar on his first two tries, he reached the previously unreachable height on his third attempt, adding an exhilarating finishing touch to the gold medal he had already won in the tournament.
Ever since he broke the world record in February 2020, Duplantis has consistently pushed himself to achieve more success. Duplantis remarked: “I think I can do it again, but I don’t really care right now… I’m so happy, I’m going to enjoy this very much. I’ve got my family here, my girl here, some of my best friends here…. I’m going to enjoy the heck out of this. I don’t care about anything except the present moment right now.”
Mondo Duplantis of Sweden smashed his own world record in the pole vault at the Silesia Diamond League competition, clearing 6.26 metres on his second try.
The athlete broke the world record for the tenth time, surpassing the record of 6.25 meters that he cleared as he held onto his Olympic gold medal in the Paris Games earlier this month. Moreover, this was also his third record-breaking performance of the year.
In a social media post, he shared his exceptional achievement with a caption: “Straight back to it”
Duplantis won in Lausanne with a clear round of 6.15, but the Polish crowd at the Silesia Stadium in Chorzow was holding their breath when he raised the bar to 6.26 after going over at six metres.
After breaking the world mark for the ninth time at the Olympics in Paris, the 24-year-old delighted the Stade de France audience, and there was always a sense that Duplantis was not finished.
All athletes eventually reach a point where they’re forced to give up their sport after years of hard work, whether it’s due to physical limitations, poor performance, or a personal decision. And they typically retire, or at least consider retirement, by the time they’re in their mid-30s.
Occasionally, however, we encounter an individual who deviates from this trajectory and remains in play.
And the reason behind it is none other than his undying passion for the ‘high jump’ sport. A sport that he chose over the third most popular sport in the world after football and cricket, basketball.
Thomas used to be a basketball player while he attended Lindenwood University in Missouri, USA, and he was particularly good at slam dunks.
One time, he ate with one of his friends who was on the Track and Field team and was peering over the team’s high jumper as he put up his food tray. This was the conversation that transpired that afternoon:
Thomas: “That’s your high jumper?”
Friend: “Yeah,”
Thomas: “Shoot, I could beat him jumping,”
Friend: “Nah, you can’t beat him. He could jump 6’6″ (1.98m).”
Thomas: “I think I could do it,”
They then stopped eating and headed straight down to the jumping facility, where Thomas cleared a height of 6’6″ (1.98 m) on his first attempt and a height of 7’0” (2.13 m) on his third attempt, setting a new school record.
The rest, after that, is history.
The many accomplishments of Thomas
He has accomplished many things since then and has reached the podium many times, with the most prominent being his high jump competition in the 2007 World Championship in Osaka, where he reached a height of 2.35 meters at 23 years old, his personal best so far.
The following year, Thomas competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics for the first time. Sadly, he didn’t make it to the finals and ended up with a 21st place finish, but he still remembers the pride of being there and just soaking it all in.
“It’s a feeling like none other,” Thomas said. “It’s like going to war for your country.”
True enough, Thomas, who loved the sport itself and the idea of representing and ‘fighting’ for his country, has been going back to competitions, year after year, even after his comrades have fallen down.
And after 16 years of rising and falling, Thomas, who’s now approaching his 40s, is still going strong.
When asked why he still wanted to compete even after so many of his competitors had retired, his answer was:
“I guess, I want to achieve more,” he said. “I felt like I had it in me to get into the final and possibly contend for a medal. It just didn’t go my way. I feel I can do it, so I just got to keep it going.”
Perhaps that’s why Thomas has captivated sports fans for so long. In so many ways, he’s not only teaching us how to dream big but also how perseverance is the key to achieving it.
In 2021, Thomas said these words in an interview that perfectly captured his outlook on life:
“I just want to be an inspiration to anyone out there who has dreams and goals or who wants to do something but are not sure what they could. Don’t be scared to take a leap of faith.”
So many people look up to him, including his 17-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter, who are both involved in sports.
The Superhero?
“They think I’m a superhero,” he smiled. “They always look up to me and admire what I do. I’m sure they will be disappointed I didn’t get into the final, but that’s what it is. You compete against the world, and sometimes you fall short.”- Donald Thomas on his competition in the 2023 World Athletics Championships, Budapest
If we go by the dictionary, technically, Thomas fits the description of a hero, an individual who is loved or looked up to because of their courage, accomplishments, or qualities of nobility.
In his entire career, Thomas, in his moments of strength and weakness, triumph and failure, has shown us the true definition of grit and resilience. His passion for the sport he chose so many years ago has withstood the test of time.
When asked if he still enjoyed the sport, he answered:
“Yeah, the jumping part is easy,” he says. “It’s the technical aspects of the jump I find a little harder but in terms of the natural spring, that’s the easy part. I just gotta stay patient, stay tall throughout the running and get straight up. Sometimes I tend not to do it, or I take too many jumps in order to get to the right position. But I just gotta keep working.”
“I just gotta keep working.”, Despite so many failures and after so many years of working hard, he still says these words, truly a hero for all the athletes out there who have lost hope.
This is the mindset that has enabled him to progress to this point, and it is the mindset that is likely to propel him further in his career. He still has a long way to go, and there are still many hurdles to overcome.
At the Diamond League season opener in Xiamen, China, Swedish phenom Mondo Duplantis once again shattered the world record for men’s pole vaulting, this time reaching an incredible height of 6.24 meters (20 feet, 5 inches).
It was an incredible exhibition of athletic power. Duplantis, who is only 24 years old, is already writing history by accomplishing this incredible performance in a string of outdoor meets. In addition to captivating fans all around the world, his unwavering pursuit of excellence solidifies his standing as a true icon in the track and field community.
He broke his record of 6.22 meters set on February 25, 2023, by clearing 6.23 meters on his 16th try at the September Diamond League Final in Eugene, Oregon. It was an incredible performance.
He made six failed attempts at 6.24 meters during the winter indoor season, but his persistence paid off as he reached the height with ease on his first outdoor attempt of 2024 in Xiamen, showcasing his extraordinary talent and persistent willpower.
Pole Vaulting First: Duplantis’s Ground-Breaking Approach
Mondo Duplantis has distinguished himself by methodically raising the bar in the vein of Sergey Bubka, both literally and figuratively. He has gradually raised his height on every try at a world record since February 2020 by just one centimeter, and he receives bonuses every time he beats his record.
This strategy was established by Bubka, who set 17 outdoor and 18 indoor world records between 1984 and 1994. Duplantis is now pursuing athletic greatness with this strategy.
In an exciting sprint, Christian Coleman won the 100 meters in 10.13 seconds with a headwind of.6 meters per second, just missing Fred Kerley by four-hundredths of a second. All eyes will be on the June Olympic Trials because the United States has produced the last three global 100-meter champions (Coleman in 2019, Kerley in 2022, and Noah Lyles in 2023), as well as two more world 100-meter medalists (Trayvon Bromell and Marvin Bracy-Williams).
In the individual 100-meter event, the top three finishers will secure their spots on the team headed for Paris, ensuring an exciting exhibition of talent and speed.
