Australia’s Kurtis Marschall pulled off an almighty upset at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm on Sunday, toppling pole vault icon Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis.
Marschall inflicted the Swedish sensation first defeat in almost three years when he failed to clear six metres on homesoil.
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Marschall, who won bronze at the Paris Olympics, and everyone else in the sport have been trying to play catch up as Duplantis repeatedly broke his own world records in recent years.
The 29-year-old West Australian got the better of Duplantis to be the first to clear at the 6.0m height, however.
Then the local hero was unable to clear at 6.05m in difficult conditions.
“I can’t believe it! I’m going to cherish this for my whole life. They don’t come easy in this day and age,” Marschall told Athletics Australia.
“I jumped great in these conditions, I’m very happy, but I know Mondo isn’t going to let it happen in the future. This stadium wouldn’t be what it is without him, so to come here and to do it in front of this crowd, I’m cherishing every single moment.
“He’s one of the best competitors and one of the best blokes. I love him with all my heart.”
Duplantis said he hoped the defeat would prove a good romantic omen.
“I’m getting married in about a week’s time… there’s a lot around that but I don’t want to make that the excuse,” he said.
“We have a saying in Swedish… that you’re either lucky in games or you’re lucky in love.
“In some really strange way I think there some funny message and silver lining to this whole thing that maybe it’s saying something about my commitment that I’m about to make in my marriage, maybe.
“There’s something that really makes me believe in that right now.” But he added he hoped he only needed to suffer one defeat.
“I lost at my home city, I’m here in Stockholm, and I had so much family here, it’s actually the worst thing that could ever happen to me,” he said as he wrestled with the logical implications of his statement.
“I think that this loss will keep the love lucky for quite a while, I would hope, probably for ever.”
The last time Duplantis failed to win was in the Monaco Diamond League meeting in 2023, when he finished tied for fourth and Australian Kurtis Marschall was third.
Since then, Duplantis has raised the world record nine more times to 6.31, set in Uppsala, Sweden, in March.
The stage was set for the American-born Swedish star to again hit new heights before his fans, and family, but he struggled with the conditions.
Marschall outjumped and out-bluffed Duplantis.
They were the only two competitors left after Duplantis cleared 5.80m. Marschall then went over at 5.90m.
After Duplantis failed at 6.0m, Marschall passed, forcing Duplantis to lift the bar to 6.05m where he failed again.
“Big hats off to Kurtis because he was the better man and beat me fair and square,” said Duplantis.
“We had a little bit of some tough winds today, for sure, but I didn’t jump that well.” Duplantis added: “I felt I was pretty unfocused.”
Marschall was not the only Australian to produce an impressive meet in Stockholm.
Cameron Myers finished second in the men’s 1500m as he was run down in the final straight by American Yared Nuguse.
“It’s not the outcome that I wanted but you have to play to how you feel on the day, and I didn’t feel great which is frustrating. I get to go again on Wednesday [in Oslo],” Myers told Athletics Australia.
“The legs weren’t there from 800m in. I didn’t have the usual feeling. I was in a position where I had to command it and keep it fast, even through I wasn’t feeling good.”
Olympic bronze medallist Matthew Denny came runner-up in the men’s discuss, while Peter Bol clocked a season’s best when finishing fifth in the 800m.
In other events, Audrey Werro set the fastest time in the women’s 800m in 43 years, US teenager Cooper Lutkenhaus sparkled on his Diamond League debut in the men’s 800m and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden won in her first 100m of the season.
In the women’s 800m, Werro became only the third woman ever to run the event in under 1min 54sec, with her time of 1:53.98 the third fastest in history.
In doing so she beat Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson into second place, despite the Briton beating her British record with a time of 1:54.33.
Switzerland’s Werro, 22, smashed her personal best by more than two seconds. “I have no words, it’s really a crazy performance and I will need one week to process what just happened today,” Werro said.
The only two women to have run faster were Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova, when she set the current world mark of 1:53.28 in 1983, and Soviet runner Nadezhda Olizarenko, who had set the previous record in 1980.
Many world records set in the 1980s, when doping was rife, have long been viewed with suspicion, even those that set them never failed a doping test.
“Every day for two years I repeat to myself ‘I am the best’, sometimes it’s really hard to believe but if you repeat this every day you can do great things, like today,” Werro added.
Jefferson-Wooden, running her first 100m since taking the world title last September in Tokyo, bounced back from her 200m defeat in the Rome Diamond League meet a few days earlier as she cruised to victory.
“I’m really happy I was able to come out and perform after Rome three days ago, that being my first race of the year,” she said at the finish.
Two months after becoming the youngest world champion, at the indoors in Poland in March, 17-year-old Lutkenhaus won on his Diamond League debut, outfoxing an experienced 800m field to surge through on the home straight and win in 1:42.70.
“I’m young but I feel pretty old sometimes,” he said.