AFP, Brussels :
Armand Duplantis was kept waiting a long time in Brussels as he failed in another bid to better his own world record of 6.18 metres, but the Swede is confident he will add at least another centimetre to the mark.
As a slight chill settled in at the King Baudouin stadium on Friday, Duplantis was forced to don his tracksuit as technical officials struggled to raise the bar.
All other disciplines at the Diamond League meeting had finished and the post-event DJs and firework technicians were kept waiting patiently in the wings for their moment of stardom.
The track em-cee did his best to keep the raucous 28,000-strong crowd on their toes and eventually the bar was raised so that Duplantis could line himself up, ready to launch down the runway.
Speaking before the meet, Duplantis had said an almost perfect combination of proper competition, good weather and a supportive crowd were needed for a new world record to be set.
The stars surely aligned in the Belgian capital, but the technical problems worked against the 21-year-old in his bid to produce that final record-setting vault.
“I could not ask for better conditions. It was hot enough, there was no wind, all perfect,” he said. “It was just up to me.
“The crowd was unreal. I haven’t had such an amazing atmosphere during the competition in a really long time.
“All eyes were on me when I attacked the world record. It is still a special feeling, really cool.”
Duplantis, known by his nickname “Mondo”, set the current world record of 6.18m indoors in Glasgow last year, before going on to set a world outdoor best of 6.15m in Rome, finally eclipsing the 1994 mark set by all-time great Sergey Bubka.
