Sam Kendricks of the United States successfully defended his men’s pole vault world title in Doha Tuesday, outgunning Swedish teenager Armand Duplantis in a thrilling final.
Kendricks won on countback after the 19-year-old Duplantis failed to clear three attempts at 6.02m at the Khalifa Stadium.
It was a second world championship gold medal for Kendricks, who won the 2017 title in London.
Duplantis settled for silver while Poland’s Piotr Lisek took the bronze medal.
The 27-year-old Kendricks and his friend Duplantis were left as the last men standing after Lisek bowed out following two failures at 5.97m.
Duplantis and Kendricks both missed their first and second attempts at 5.97m as the tension mounted.
But with Duplantis needing a clearance to stay alive, the teenager delivered, just brushing the bar before going over safely.
That piled the pressure on Kendricks, but the American was up to the task, matching Duplantis’ vault to raise the bar to 6.02m.
That proved beyond Duplantis however, the Swede missing all three attempts to leave Kendricks the victor on countback.
| POS | BIB | ATHLETE | COUNTRY | MARK | DETAIL | 5.55 | 5.70 | 5.80 | 5.87 | 5.92 | 5.97 | 6.02 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1902 | Sam KENDRICKS |  |
5.97 | O | O | O | XXO | O | XXO | XX- | |
| 2 | 1708 | Armand DUPLANTIS |  |
5.97 | – | O | O | XO | XXO | XXO | XXX | |
| 3 | 1533 | Piotr LISEK |  |
5.87 | O | O | O | XO | X- | XX | ||
| 4 | 921 | Bo Kanda LITA BAEHRE |  |
5.70 | O | O | XXX | |||||
| 5 | 319 | Thiago BRAZ |  |
5.70 | XO | O | XXX | |||||
| 6 | 916 | Raphael HOLZDEPPE | |
5.70 | O | XO | XXX | |||||
| 6 | 783 | Valentin LAVILLENIE |  |
5.70 | O | XO | XXX | |||||
| 8 | 1113 | Claudio Michel STECCHI |  |
5.70 | O | XXO | XXX | |||||
| 9 | 458 | Bokai HUANG |  |
5.55 | O | XXX | ||||||
| 10 | 330 | Augusto DUTRA | |
5.55 | XO | XXX | ||||||
| 10 | 1936 | Cole WALSH | |
5.55 | XO | XXX | ||||||
| 12 | 246 | Ben BROEDERS |  |
5.55 | XXO | XXX |
