Duplantis starts outdoor season with LSU Alumni Gold win

Mondo Duplantis opened his outdoor season with a comfortable victory at the LSU Alumni Gold meet in Baton Rouge on Saturday (24 April).

The pole vault world record holder, and one of athletics' biggest names, took his unbeaten record to 22 competitions - indoors and out - with a winning clearance of 5.90m.

The win was never in doubt for Duplantis with Warren Miller and James Courson tying for second on 5.16m.

Duplantis cleared 5.60m and 5.80m on his first attempt before a surprising failure at 5.90m, although he made amends with his second attempt.

He then had one failure at 6.00m before deciding to call it a day.

Arguably the performance of the meet came from LSU sophomore Noah Williams in the 400m.

The NCAA Indoor champion clocked a world lead 44.30s to take victory with Bryce Deadmon of Texas A&M second in a very respectable 44.58s.

Duplantis starts journey to Tokyo

The Louisiana-born Swede last tasted defeat in the final of the 2019 World Championships in Doha where he had to settle for silver behind USA's Sam Kendricks.

He has been unstoppable since, surpassing his friend Renaud Lavillenie's absolute world record twice in February last year, before breaking Sergey Bubka's long-standing outdoor mark in Rome in September.

This season has seen more of the same with the 21-year-old clearing 6.10m in Belgrade in February before taking the European Indoor title in Torun, Poland with a winning jump of 6.05m.

On both occasions, he was unsuccessful when attempting a new world record of 6.19m.

Despite that world record and unbeaten record, Duplantis is still awaiting that first global crown.

Speaking recently to his idol Bubka, the youngster admitted that the Olympic Games was his biggest goal saying, "It's the biggest event in track and field. I want to go in there and I want to be able to come away with the gold because I think it's just really important if you want to leave your legacy as one of the best pole vaulters to live."