love when athletes mix it up. Did you expect this result?
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Well you need to accelerate your weight fast enough to convert all that kinetic energy to stored energy in the pole that then recoils and launches you up and over so it makes sense that the pole vaulter’s max speed over 100m is better than a 400m hurdler who is more of an a borderline endurance sprinter so it kind of makes sense!!!
Very fun. I would not have put my money on Mondo.
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Price of losing is that Karsten has to wear the Swedish uniform in his next 400m hurdle race.
Pole vaulters don’t practice gun starts off the block. Although he did have previous experience years ago doing the 100m, amazing he kept his reaction timing vs someone who practices it often
that shocked me. but helps explain why he’s such an overwhelming pole vaulter.
I was a pole vaulter as a kid. About 2m inferior to Mondo, so basically a mid-pack age grouper.
It’s pretty widely known that Mondo is using longer poles than anyone else ever has; his speed is the key to why he can do this, not the fact he’s been vaulting since he could walk.
He is the perfect combination of natural ability, genetic luck, and opportunity. And probably a boat load of hard work.
Interesting, so longer pole is within the rules? I guess there is a weight and balance penalty with that
Not so much. Poles are rated by length, weight(strength) and flex. The weight is basically the max weight of vaulter who should use that pole, and one goal is to use a pole rated significantly above your own body weight, ergo giving more “spring” off the top if technique and timing allows.
The longer the pole, the more speed you have to carry in order to actually make it onto the mat. Think of it like a right-angled triangle. The pole is the hypotenuse, so the taller the vaulter, the shorter the base of the triangle will be. Mondo is not overly tall, so needs to carry a lot of speed in order to close the distance of that triangle base and make the mat.
When we were in Paris to watch swim events, we got to watch Duplantis on TV in the pole vault. The way the pole vaulters cheered for and supported each other was amazing and that was totally eclipsed by what Duplantis achieved.
It was up there with watching Katie Ledecky swim. We saw here in the 800m heats on Friday. We got to see her in the 4x200 finals Thursday.
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I recall from the Sergey Bubka days, that he was using a very hard pole that only he could flex. I learned at the time that any athlete can check or even use another athletes pole. Don’t know if that has changed though.
Imagine that in formula 1 
IIRC, in the fiasco that was the 1972 Munich Olympic pole vault, the powers-that-be ruled Bob Seagren’s poles were illegal (they weren’t), so he had to borrow a teammate’s poles.
Was it genetic luck or genetic design, with a world class heptathlete mom and world class pole vaulter dad?