San Francisco Frontiers - Duplantis soars into world pole vault final

Skipping the opening mark of 5.35m, the world and Olympic champion then had three successful vaults at 5.55m, 5.70m and 5.75m respectively.

That was sufficient to qualify as top of the 12 competitors to progress to Saturday's final in Budapest.

Duplantis, 23, is bidding to claim a sixth successive title. He was European, world outdoor and world indoor champion in 2022 and Olympic and European indoor winner in 2021.

His last defeat at a major championship was when he was 19, finishing runner-up to American Sam Kendricks at the 2019 world championship in Doha.

Duplantis comes into Budapest on the back of a rare defeat – only his fourth since 2019. The world champion and world record holder finished fourth at last month's Monaco Diamond League meet.

But he leads the 2023 world outdoor list by a mile, thanks to the 6.12m he cleared in Ostrava in June.

He also improved his world record to 6.22m indoors in Clermont-Ferrand in February and he boasts the second best outdoor vault, 6.11m in Hengelo, and five six metre-plus outdoor clearances in all in 2023.

Only two other vaulters in the field, Norway's Sondre Guttormsen and Filipino Ernest John Obiena, had gone over six metres this season, but the Norwegian failed to make it out of qualifying.

Duplantis, who set a then-world record of 6.21m to win world gold in Eugene last year, will again meet reigning world silver and bronze medallists Chris Nilsen of the United States and Obiena in the final in the Hungarian capital.

B.Johnson--SFF