Transcript
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Mondo Duplantis. Yesterday, in case you missed this, the pole vaulter went full Superman in Paris, soaring roughly a foot higher than the silver and bronze medalists.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
That's right. Once the gold was guaranteed, it was just Duplantis versus the bar. And he kept setting it higher, first breaking the Olympic record...
KELLY: And then breaking the world record, which he himself had set earlier this year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MONDO DUPLANTIS: I guess I've been fortunate enough to do it several times now.
KELLY: The 24-year-old tried to capture that record-breaking feeling at a press conference right after the jump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DUPLANTIS: When I'm going over with the bar, it's just like - it doesn't feel real in a way, so that was more just kind of hysteria and just freaking out.
CHANG: The Louisiana-born athlete competes for his mother's native Sweden. He took gold in Tokyo, too, and he has now broken the world record an astonishing nine times.
KELLY: But just by a single centimeter each of those times because, with each broken record, he reportedly earns tens of thousands of dollars.
CHANG: And with that incentive, Duplantis might be tempted to raise the bar again.
KELLY: But just by a teeny fit.
(SOUNDBITE OF BARBARA ACKLIN SONG, "AM I THE SAME GIRL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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