Duplantis relishing competing against ‘myself’

Pole vault star Armand Duplantis said on Monday he was competing with himself rather than the rest of the field as he relished his record start into the season.
Duplantis set a new world record of 6.22 metres indoors in Clermont-Ferrand in February before clearing the bar at a world-leading 6.11m outdoors this month.
“I’m in the place where I want to be and I’ve liked the start so far,” the reigning Olympic and world champion said ahead of today’s Golden Spike meet in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava.
“I’m in a good shape, I’m fast, I’m strong, I’m pretty much technically... where I want to be right now,” said Duplantis, who will seek to defend his world championship win in Budapest in August.
His 6.22m indoors beats Renaud Lavillenie’s record by six centimetres, while his 6.21m outdoors is well ahead of the 6.14m jumped by Ukrainian legend Sergey Bubka in 1994.
But waving aside his status as the runaway leader across all statistics, Duplantis said the nature of the sport made him compete largely with himself anyway.
“It’s not the competition where you really play against each other,” said the 23-year-old US-born Swedish athlete.
“You have to go up there and jump high and clear whatever the bar may be. It’s a competition within myself.”
“That’s how it was even before I was the best in the world, because that’s the approach to every competition. Whatever the person besides you does, it doesn’t matter,” Duplantis added.
He said keeping calm was a crucial part of his approach.
“At the end of the day it’s just pole vault. I try not to over calculate,” he said.
“I try not to worry about anything, it’s me and the bar, and it’s just a competition between me and the bar. The only competition against other people is basically just on the scorecard. The only thing I can control is myself.”
Top women hurdlers ready to go under 12 seconds
Reigning Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and world record holder Tobi Amusan said yesterday they were ready to run the 100m hurdles in under 12 seconds if the bars remained at their present height.
Amusan set the current world record of 12.12 seconds at last year’s World Championships.
She even managed 12.06 seconds in the final, but the time was not recognised as a new record because of tailwind.
“I’m a big believer in the Bible, nothing is impossible and 11 seconds? Most definitely,” Amusan told reporters ahead of today’s Golden Spike meet in the eastern Czech city of Ostrava.
“I do think it’s possible and I hope it happens during our time,” added Camacho-Quinn, who won gold at the Covid-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
She added the world record “should be faster than what it really is”.
“You can be super fast on the 100 and you can be super fast on the 200 but sometimes that speed is too much for hurdles and it all becomes about rhythm at that point and technique.”
“It’s just about piecing it together,” added the 26-year-old Puerto Rican.
Both Camacho-Quinn and Amusan said hurdles should stay at 84 centimetres (33 inches) of height, despite an ongoing debate on raising them to give priority to technique over speed.
“I’m basically 5’9 (174 centimetres) and I still do clip a hurdle,” said Camacho-Quinn. “I obviously don’t see the point of raising them. What do people expect from that? Because the times are going to change. You’re just going to see us jumping up the whole time,” she added.
Amusan, who is 5’1 (156 centimetres) tall, had even less sympathy, laughing the idea off.
“I feel like we have a lot of hurdlers that are really short,” said the Nigerian.