Armand Duplantis

I love being a Sweden athlete.

I'm gonna try and take pole vaulting as high as I can. I want it to be as popular as it can be.

Having two older brothers very good at sports, we were very competitive.

I am going to try and carry the sport as much as I can and I know the best way to do that is to jump really high.

14, 15 16 - those were my little awkward ages. I was still short.

The position I am in, I never really imagined, people talking to me about leading the whole sport of track and field? I am just a pole vaulter, it is such a strange and unique event.

To put pole vaulting on the map just for a second is a dream come true.

The only competition against other people is basically just on the scorecard. The only thing I can control is myself.

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 thing I really loved about golf was that when you're on the golf course, nothing in the world matters other than your next shot.

I wanted to jump some days. I wanted to not jump some days. Some days I wanted to jump left-handed. Some days I wanted to jump in my underwear.

I always thought I had the ability to be the best pole-vaulter in the world. I thought that ever since I was a little kid.

I want to do more than Bubka's done, for sure. More Olympics than him, more world championships.

When I was younger, pole vaulting was all that I knew. It was mainstream. It was so accessible to me and I was able to do it so much and so often. I've been surrounded by it since I was a little kid, like someone playing basketball.

Despite having been fortunate enough to have experienced some incredibly grand moments, met some of the best athletes in the world and broken a few records, the smallest and most intimate moments define me equally as much, as an athlete, a person and a man.

I hope that I, together with Eton, will inspire people to acknowledge and appreciate all life's moments while they pursue their inner ambitions.

Each world record feels like it brings something a bit different out of me.

Going over 6.20m for the first time, it's hard to explain. It's something that you can only dream of.

It's hard to believe sometimes that I am the world record holder.

I try not to limit myself on what I can do.

Renaud was my idol growing up ever since I was 10 years old and I was just getting into pole vaulting and starting to become obsessed with him in general and the way he jumps, how he can do what he was doing.

I wear Sweden across my chest and I do it proudly.

When I was 13 I played baseball the whole summer. I never touched a pole vault pole.

If I go into years only thinking about medals I'm missing the whole meaning of what I've always been trying to do, which is trying to push myself and push the barriers of what is possible.

I would like to jump 6.30 just because it sounds cool. Not because it's a limit, or anything like that.

If I feel like I am becoming stagnant then I will try something new. I am always going to be trying to get to a new level.

I've been guilty of not taking my first and even second attempts too seriously. Knowing you have a third attempt is not always a good thing. It doesn't allow as much breathing room as you think. So golf has helped me there. Every shot matters. And now I take that attitude into every vault. I know now not to take any attempt lightly.

At the end of the day it's just pole vault. I try not to over calculate.

Ever since I started vaulting in my backyard, when I was in diapers, I wanted to be the best that's ever lived - to break the world record.

I've always tried to not put a limit on myself. There are endless possibilities.

Sweden and track and field always went together in my heart.

I want to break the world record, win Olympic gold and win World Championship gold.

I can only be who I can be. I can't be Usain Bolt, we're different people and do different events, so it's hard to compare us.

Growing up... you see Bubka as almost this mythological creature. He was not real in the things that he was doing, they didn't seem possible. Any record where you can knock him down a ranking is a pretty special feeling.

I want to win everything there is to win, and do it more times than anyone else has done it.

There's always room to improve.

My event is just like golf in that you have to practice a lot. It's so specific, it needs time.

I really do have the golf bug. I'm an addict. It's such a hard but easy game to love.

I can jump in front of a million people and be fine. I know what I'm doing. In fact, the more people watching me the better.

Renaud was my absolute idol.

My father might have got me to 5.80 m, but I definitely give just as much credit, and maybe even more, to my mother, who got me to 6.00 m.

Breaking the world record for the first time in Torun was a very crazy feeling. There was this rush of emotions that flooded through my body as I cleared the bar and it was hard to believe that it actually happened.

Sport works that way, once someone moves on new stars step up and that is always the case.

I go out there, try to jump high and just be genuine.

I like putting on a show and everything else just works out.

I know I can come away with the win whatever the competition. Second place in any competition is disappointing.

I know I'm capable of great things. I could jump really high and break world records and push boundaries that no man has gone into.

It's the hugest platform of athletics and I dream of a world record at the Olympics. One jump can change a lot of things in someone's life.

Where my mom comes from, you can't have that big of a personality or be cocky or think you're better than anyone else. My dad grew up in New Orleans. It's a little bit different.

That's a pretty big advantage to this journey that I've been able to have, is that I was able to start at such a young age because my father built a setup and I was able to build a technique from 3 years up to now. Without the backyard, I'm not whatever I am today. I knew that none of my classmates were pole vaulting.