India, Aug. 7 -- One man up against himself. His rivals stood around the runway, clapping, turning to the stands and geeing up the crowd. They know they aren't his rivals really. The gold and the galaxy belong to him. "Allez Mondo", the 80,000-strong crowd at the Stade de France echoed. Armand Duplantis had broken the world record eight times before.The 24 year-old Swedish-American stood on the runway, the pole resting on his right shoulder in his third and final attempt to clear 6.25m. He'd already confirmed the Olympic gold medal with an attempt of 6.00m. He'd gone over the Olympic Record by 7 cms, with the next. Now it was about chasing immortality and shattering his own world record.It can seem like a strange sport, pole vault. You use a pole to propel yourself and throw yourself over a cross bar as high as two stories of a building. Duplantis, or Mondo, makes it seem like a symphony. As if he somehow went back in time to ancient Greece and made this sport happen so he could lord over it one day.Duplantis grew up with a pole vault pit in the backyard of his home in Lafayette, Louisiana. He's coached by his father Greg, an American and former pole vaulter. His mother, Helena who was born and raised in Sweden, is a former heptathlete.

"My father is genuinely obsessed with pole vaulting. We just talk for hours about what's going on in the world of pole vault," Duplantis told Vogue in June, "They just love track and field and the love rubbed off on me."Duplantis won the Olympic gold in Tokyo three years ago. The gold almost seems unremarkable for him. It's the most predictable part of the competition. On Monday night in Paris, the silver went to an attempt of 5.95 by USA's Sam Kendricks and the Emmanouil Karalis of Greece took home the bronze for an effort of 5.90m.Duplantis pretty much by himself, at the top."You're really just competing against the crossbar and against the person who you were yesterday."He's competing with his yesterday's records, more precisely. In April this year, he'd improved his own world record with, clearing 6.24m at the Diamond League in Xiamen, China.On Monday night, Duplantis failed in his first two attempts to go one centimetre over the world record he set in Xiamen. His way of telling lesser mortals that he's still human.In his third attempt and final attempt, he burst down the track in his typically explosive, maddening speed. No pole vaulter has run as fast as Duplantis. He planted the pole in the vault box, and jumped heavenwards, feet-first. feeding off the momentum in the take-off. The pole flexed at his command as he launched himself into the air. The soles of his spikes face the sky and for those brief seconds, he's hanging in the air, looking at the world upside down. The crossbar doesn't quiver this time as he glides over it."For it to actually happen the way that it did and for me to put the right jump together at the right time, it's just, like, how do you explain it?" he said after "I feel so grateful for how tonight played out. I didn't let myself believe that I was an Olympic champion until it was all done. I think it's been such a fight to show up and to be at our best and do it when it matters.It's hard to understand, honestly. If I don't beat this moment in my career, then I'm pretty OK with that. I don't think you can get much better than what just happened."Airborne, he seemingly beats his chest in celebration. He knows he's done it again. He's beaten himself, broken the world record a ninth time and pushed the boundaries of the impossible. He lands on his back on the foam mat, bounces back up and bounds away to his family. ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' comes on as Duplantis takes a lap. Only 24 and already immortal.

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