Armand Duplantis. The name synonymous with pole vault perfection for the last 5 years.
Since winning the Olympics in 2021, Armand “Mondo” Duplantis has dominated the world stage, winning over 97% of his meets in track and field’s most unpredictable event.
Mondo has reached celebrity status. He makes millions pole vaulting. So imagine the surprise from his fans when he withdraws from the entire 2027 indoor season?
Here’s my honest take: I’m not surprised, and it’s not that big of a deal.
When you’re vaulting at a high level, massive amounts of stress and strain are placed on your body. It’s not a question of IF you fall apart, it’s a question of WHEN. And the name of the game is to survive through the season.
Mondo cited hamstring tightness as the reason for his withdrawal, the same injury concern that made him withdraw from this year’s Diamond League Final. Now, since he referred to it as “tightness” I’m reasonably confident that he’s dealing with a tendon strain, likely in the proximal or distal regions of the hamstring. This is the exact injury I dealt with in college, so I can tell you: tendon injuries linger. They get worse before they get better. You can jump through it for one competition, two, maybe even half a season. But eventually you will take a jump you will regret.
The only way to truly heal this injury is to take a full off-season for rehab and recovery.
And here’s the hardest part that no one talks about: the worst injuries don’t happen at the end of the season. They happen at the start, after you took time off, and now you try to jump hard again too soon. Your tendons are no longer warm to this intensity of training, but they’re still injured. SNAP! That’s how you get the worst injuries of your career.
Mondo Duplantis is a professional. He gets paid $100k for every world record broken, every world championship won. He and his team are making decisions to maximize those two outcomes. Indoor European Championships is small fry. Also, this is nothing new since Mondo has not competed at Europeans since 2021.
Bottom Line:
The best pole vaulter in the world knows he can only peak for a set amount of time, and he’s not going to jeopardize his form for anything short of a world title.
