Con Mondo Duplantis todo es ‘show’

The Périgeu, a modern stadium, holds the record for the most captivating show in athletics today. Its walls are adorned with screens, and the audience's eyes are glued to the action. The crowd's unplanned and continuous ovations, coupled with their passion, create a spectacle that even television producers, overwhelmed by marathons and marches, find tedious and repetitive.

The Périgeu advances rapidly in the cathedral of athletics, battered by its usual, humid, and cold breezes. The bar rises quickly over high steps, from 15 centimeters to 5.85 meters and then 10 meters and 5 meters, the maximum speed to achieve decisive heights without a hitch, to reach the territory of Mondo Duplantis, where his personal battle against his own record begins, and more pertiguistas join in, such as his Greek friend Emmanuil Karalis, who once again forced him to dig into his reserves to claim victory, as he did in the Tokyo World Championships final.

The contest was decided in a game of deceptive poker from the moment Duplantis equalized on 6 meters, a height Karalis also reached second. In the next height, 6.10 meters, the Greek failed, moving on to 6.15 meters, and again failed, moving on to 6.20 meters. Duplantis, accustomed to the game and nearly reaching the bar, trembled, passing both heights to the first until finally stopping, wrapped in a heavy and polarized blanket, at 6.20 meters, a new record in the championships.