The son of collegiate athletes has been pole vaulting
since he was a toddler.
Now, the 21-year-old has risen
to the level of the world champions
he idolised while growing up.
His mother, a heptathlete,
his father, a pole vaulter.
It's in his genes.
He believes it.
Competing for a country
that's never won Gold in power vault,
can Armand Duplantis overcome
the pressure of being the front-runner
and plant himself in the Olympic history books?
This is another level.
Greatnessis only truly established
if you win the Olympic Games Gold medal.
Wait for it.
Welcome to another
high-flying edition of Wait for It.
I'm Lisanne de Witte,
and we're about to raise the bar
with a story about
a pole-vaulting legend in the making.
In the olden times, my people in the Netherlands
used giant boats to navigate marshy land,
jumping to and from dry spots.
One day, two competitive medieval peasants
must have decided to see
who could go farther and higher.
A new sport was born: pole vaulting.
And it's been part of the Olympics since day one.
For the first seven decades, one country warded the Gold.
In 1896, it was William Hoyt, USA.
Four years later, Irving Baxter, USA.
1904, Charles Dvorak, USA.
USA, USA, USA...
America topped the podium all the way through 1968.
The Gold streak ended
when East Germany upped their game at Munich.
Over the next 12 Olympics, the USA won two more Golds,
but only seven other countries have tasted success.
Throughout those 120 years,
Sweden's only been able to capture three Bronze,
the last one in 1952.
But there was a golden light at the end of their tunnel
when Louisiana-born Armand Duplantis,
a world-class vaulter,
faced a critical decision:
compete for the US or his mother's homeland.
With better opportunities and training facilities,
one country made much more sense.
So Duplantis opted to represent Sweden.
Would the genetically gifted
Swedish American spring into action
and bring home the first Gold for his mother's homeland?
A superstar in the making.
I'll say it though,
to be a superstar, you win Olympic Gold.
Wait for it.
Armand Duplantis' Swedish mum met his American dad at LSU.
They fell in love and had four kids.
"Mondo," as they still call him,
was number three.
Though none of their children were pushed into sports,
it was in their genes... and their backyard.
It was filled with everything
from trampolines to a batting cage,
and yes, even a vaulting pit.
All things you need to make a legend.
But there's one thing you don't need: fear.
And Mondo seemed to have none.
By age seven,
he was a world record holder in his age group.
With his father as his coach, he only got better from there.
And after an unprecedented run of 23 straight victories
in international meets,
qualifying for Tokyo was merely a formality.
Will the grandeur of the Olympic Games
bring out the fear
that eluded Mondo his entire career?
This is the first time
he has technically or arguably been rattled.
And now, the rock star,
number one ranked pole vaulter in the world, Armand Duplantis.
Wait for it.
Mondo made pole vaulting look easy.
And at only 17, he even surpassed
his father's best of 5.8 metres.
And three years later,
he surpassed every fathers' best,
setting the indoor and outdoor world records,
besting Sergey Bubka and Renaud Lavillenie,
his childhood idols.
Now, at his first Olympics,
Mondo had reached the pinnacle of athletic competitions,
something he'd dreamt about his whole.
If that weren't daunting enough,
he was pitted against a crew of elite vaulters,
including France's Renaud Lavillenie.
He comes in with Gold and Silver around his neck.
He also held the world record for six years,
until Mondo topped it.
Next up was the reigning Olympic champion,
Thiago Braz, from Brazil,
hoping to win back-to-back Golds,
something he prevented
Lavillenie from doing back in 2016.
Mondo's other main challenger was Christopher Nilsen,
America's top Olympic qualifier.
Nilsen, of course, victorious over Duplantis
on more than just a handful of occasions in college days.
Each vaulter had three shots to clear each height.
And Mondo set the bar with his first attempt.
By the time the bar reached 5.92 metres,
Lavillenie was unable to keep up.
The apprentice congratulating the master saying,
"Look, you inspired me.
You're the reason I got into this sport."
Then the bar dropped on Thiago Braz,
leaving Nilsen and Duplantis to battle for Gold.
Mondo took the first shot.
And comfortably over. Comfortably over.
And you've got to say that probably
might be the Gold medal right there.
It was up to Nilsen to respond.
After failing twice to clear the height,
he was down to his last try.
And there it is.
Mondo Duplantis of Sweden,
just 21 years of age,
becomes Olympic champion.
Here was a favourite, he absolutely delivered.
That's what he did at his first Olympics?
I can't wait to see what he does in Paris or LA.
How high can he go?
Guess we'll just have to... wait for it.
Great.