Armand Duplantis has had his world pole vault record of 6.18m officially ratified, confirming one of those sporting moments that makes gravity look less like a law of physics and more like a polite suggestion.
World Athletics has also ratified Ababel Yeshaneh’s women’s half-marathon world record of 1:04:31, giving the record books a rather busy spell and athletics fans a reminder that, every so often, human limits require a sharp pencil and a fresh line.
Duplantis Makes Back-To-Back History
Duplantis’s record came during a dazzling indoor season, with the Swede adding one centimetre to the mark he had set only a week earlier at the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland.
That alone is absurd enough. Breaking a world record once is the sort of thing most athletes would dine out on for life. Doing it again the following weekend feels faintly indecent, like winning the raffle and then discovering you also own the shop.
The second record arrived at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow on 15 February, a World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting that ended with Duplantis floating over 6.18m at the first time of asking.
Glasgow Sees The Bar Raised Again
Before the record attempt, Duplantis had already sealed victory at 5.94m. He then cleared 6.00m on his first attempt, which for most pole vaulters would be a career summit. For him, it was merely the bit before the real business began.
The bar was raised to 6.18m. The room tightened. The runway became a corridor of expectation. Then Duplantis did what Duplantis does: launched, inverted, twisted, rose, cleared, and left everyone else to process the evidence.
“I felt like I was over it and once I was going over I knew I had it,” he said. “You can’t tell how far away you are from the bar but it felt like a good jump from the get-go.
“It’s the best little split second,” he added. “Everything builds up to that little split second and the freefall was magical.”
That is the thing about pole vaulting at this level. It is not merely strength, speed or technique. It is choreography conducted at unreasonable altitude, with the athlete briefly becoming both projectile and pilot.
Why This Record Carries Weight
The ratification matters because it turns spectacle into official history. The clearance in Glasgow was not just an extraordinary jump witnessed in the moment; it now sits formally in the world record ledger.
For Duplantis, it underlines the quality of an indoor season in which he managed to make the extraordinary feel almost routine. There was no slow courtship of the record, no creeping approach from the shadows. He broke it, returned a week later, and broke it again.
Sport likes to pretend that dominance is dull. It is not, when performed with this kind of nerve. At its best, it is theatre with numbers attached.
Yeshaneh Adds A Road-Running Thunderclap
If Duplantis was rewriting the vertical limits of athletics, Ababel Yeshaneh was busy flattening the road.
Her women’s half marathon world record of 1:04:31 came at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon, a World Athletics Gold Label road race on 21 February. In doing so, she clipped 20 seconds from the previous record of 1:04:51, set by Joyciline Jepkosgei in Valencia in 2017.
Twenty seconds at this level is not a trim. It is not a marginal gain tucked neatly into the sock drawer. It is a proper demolition job.
A Duel That Became A Statement
Yeshaneh ran close to marathon world record-holder Brigid Kosgei from the outset, with Kosgei leading through five kilometres in 15:07 and 10 kilometres in 30:18.
The decisive move came after the pair passed 15 kilometres in 45:38. From there, Yeshaneh took command, covering the second 10-kilometre segment in 30:54 before powering away to a commanding victory.
“I didn’t imagine this result,” said Yeshaneh, whose previous best of 1:05:46 had stood as the Ethiopian record for a five-month period between 2018 and 2019. “I am a world record holder!”
There is a beautiful simplicity to that final sentence. No corporate sheen. No rehearsed performance-speak. Just the astonished clarity of someone who has run into history and found her name waiting there.
Two Records, One Reminder
The official ratification of both marks gives athletics a fine double entry: Armand Duplantis at 6.18m in the pole vault, Ababel Yeshaneh at 1:04:31 in the half-marathon.
One record belonged to the air, the other to the road. One was decided in a split second above a bar, the other over a sustained hour of controlled punishment. Both required talent, timing and the sort of competitive appetite that makes ordinary ambition look rather underdressed.
World records are often discussed as numbers, because numbers are tidy and sport rarely is. But behind these two marks sit two very different forms of athletic audacity: Duplantis turning the pole vault into a private argument with the ceiling, and Yeshaneh running with the quiet violence of someone who had no interest in asking permission.
The paperwork is now complete. The performances, thankfully, remain gloriously untidy.
