Greece's Emmanouil Karalis with Sweden's Armand Duplantis during the men's pole vault final at the Zurich Diamond League, Thursday. [Denis Balibouse/Reuters]
Olympic and world champion Mondo Duplantis has broken the pole vault world record 15 times and utterly dominated the event, but Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis has now emerged as a real challenger having found the courage to go toe-to-toe with the Swede.
The pole vault has had a familiar feel in recent years. Duplantis wins the competition before going after his own world record, but there are signs that his one-man era could be at an end.
At Thursday’s Zurich Diamond League, Karalis and Duplantis both attempted the world record for the first time in the same competition.
When Duplantis took the lead at 6.15 meters, Karalis responded with a personal best of 6.20 at the first attempt.
