Duplantis cleared 6.20 metres and won the inaugural Ultimate title in Budapest
Armand "Mondo" Duplantis once again confirmed his status as the leading pole vaulter of his generation. The Swedish athlete won the men's pole vault on 11 September 2026 at the first edition of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, clearing 6.20 metres. According to the official World Athletics results, Greece's Emmanouil Karalis took second place with 6.15 metres, while Norway's Sondre Guttormsen was third with a clearance of 5.95 metres. Duplantis reached the winning height without a single failure, and after securing the title he raised the bar directly to 6.32 metres, one centimetre above his own world record. Three attempts at that height were unsuccessful, so the record of 6.31 metres, set in March in Uppsala, remained intact.
The victory in the Hungarian capital gave the 26-year-old Swede his first Ultimate champion title, but also provided further confirmation of his exceptional consistency at the biggest competitions. World Athletics states that he arrived in Budapest as a two-time Olympic champion, three-time outdoor world champion and four-time indoor world champion. In addition, during his career he had already moved the world record mark 15 times. Had he cleared 6.32 metres in Budapest, it would have been his 16th world record and another one-centimetre shift of the limit in a discipline he has almost completely redefined in recent years.
A perfect series up to the winning 6.20 metres
Duplantis opened the competition at 5.60 metres and cleared that height on his first attempt. He then passed 5.80, and according to the World Athletics report continued flawlessly at 5.95, 6.05 and 6.15 metres. Such a series allowed him to maintain complete control of the competition in the closing stages, but the title was still not a formality because Karalis remained in contention even after heights at which most of the field had already been eliminated. The Swede then also cleared 6.20 metres on his first attempt, something none of the remaining rivals managed to match. That was precisely the height that decided the winner.
The official results show that behind the leading pair, three athletes finished with 5.95 metres. Third place went to Guttormsen, Australian Kurtis Marschall was fourth, and American Zachery Bradford fifth, with the ranking determined by the number of attempts and earlier failures. France's Baptiste Thiery and American Sam Kendricks shared sixth place with 5.80 metres, while Christopher Nilsen finished eighth, also with 5.80. Such a final line-up reflected the idea behind the new competition: Olympic and world champions, Diamond League winners and leading athletes based on performances and world rankings gathered in Budapest.
Karalis remained in contention until the very end
The greatest pressure on Duplantis once again came from Emmanouil Karalis, one of the few vaulters who during 2026 approached the heights at which the Swede regularly wins. The Greek had a more demanding route through the final. World Athletics states that he cleared 6.05 metres only on his third attempt, which kept him in the competition, and then cleared 6.15 on his first attempt. That gave him a realistic chance of challenging for first place, especially because in the final weeks of the season he had shown the kind of form that established him as Duplantis's main challenger.
Karalis, however, after one unsuccessful attempt at 6.20 metres decided to carry his remaining two attempts over to 6.25. He did not succeed at that height either, so he finished the competition with 6.15 metres. According to the organisers' report, after the final he said that he had been dealing with minor problems in his leg and back. Despite that, he stayed with Duplantis until the final phase of the competition, continuing the trend of significantly more competitive head-to-head battles in the second half of 2026.
Their growing proximity had also been visible several weeks before Budapest. At the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on 20 August, Duplantis won with 6.21 metres, while Karalis cleared 6.16. Just one week later, on 27 August in Zürich, the Swede reached 6.25, while Karalis reached 6.20 metres, setting a Greek national record and consolidating second place on the world all-time list behind Duplantis. World Athletics currently lists Duplantis's 6.31 as the world record, while Karalis's 6.20 is the best mark by the second most successful vaulter in history based on personal best.
Attack on 6.32 metres after the title had been secured
After Karalis finished the competition, Duplantis no longer had to defend first place. Instead of raising the bar gradually, he decided to attack 6.32 metres immediately. That height would have surpassed his current world record of 6.31 by one centimetre, set on 12 March 2026 at the Mondo Classic in Uppsala. World Athletics reported at the time that he cleared the record height on his first attempt, following a previously flawless series at 5.65, 5.90 and 6.08 metres. It was the 15th world record of his career.
The record did not fall in Budapest. The organisers described a chilly evening at the Gyula Zsivótzky National Athletics Centre, and Duplantis had three unsuccessful attempts at 6.32. Before the second attempt, Sergej Bubka, one of the most historically important pole vaulters, also offered him support during a conversation in front of the crowd. The attempt at the record height itself further highlighted what has become an almost routine pattern in Duplantis's performances in recent seasons: after securing victory, he often turns the competition into an attack on a new world record mark.
The fact that he did not clear 6.32 does not diminish the value of the 6.20 result. That height remains extremely rare in the history of the discipline, and on the official World Athletics all-time lists only Duplantis and Karalis are active athletes with personal bests of at least 6.20 metres. In Budapest, the Swede also cleared every height up to and including the winning mark without a failure, which is particularly important in a discipline where the number of attempts often decides the ranking when several competitors finish with the same cleared height.
Budapest once again an important stop in Duplantis's career
Budapest already holds a special place in Duplantis's career. At the 2023 World Championships in that city, he won his second outdoor world title. Two years later, on 12 August 2025, he raised the world record to 6.29 metres in Budapest. A month later at the World Championships in Tokyo, he cleared 6.30 and won his third consecutive world title, and in March 2026 in Uppsala he improved the record further to 6.31.
That sequence shows how quickly the limits of the discipline have moved under his influence. After the record in Uppsala, World Athletics recalled that Duplantis had also been named World Athlete of the Year in 2025. His dominance, however, was not completely uninterrupted in 2026. In June, Australian Kurtis Marschall handed him his first defeat in almost three years in Stockholm, according to the World Athletics report. That result did not change the overall balance of power in the discipline, but it showed that even Duplantis can be vulnerable in an individual competition.
Ahead of the Ultimate Championship, there was another reason for caution. Duplantis withdrew immediately before the Diamond League final because of tightness in his leg, and World Athletics reported that he made the decision as a precaution. In his absence, Karalis won the Diamond League final, arriving in Budapest with an important title and additional confidence. That is why Duplantis's clean series up to 6.20 metres in his first appearance after that withdrawal also carried broader competitive significance: it showed that the problem was sufficiently under control for him to return to the level required to win a major international final.
New format brought together 381 athletes from 65 federations
The World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest was the inaugural edition of a new global competition conceived as the finale of the athletics season. According to official World Athletics data, 381 athletes from 65 national federations competed from 11 to 13 September, and the programme included 28 disciplines. The organisers designed the qualification system to bring together Olympic champions, world champions, Diamond League winners and the season's highest-ranked athletes. Field events, including the men's pole vault, were held directly as finals with eight competitors.
The competition was also introduced with a financial model unlike anything athletics had previously had at a single event. World Athletics states that the total prize fund amounted to 10 million US dollars, the largest in the history of the sport at a single competition. The winner of an individual discipline receives 150,000 dollars, the runner-up 75,000, and third place 40,000 dollars, while prize money is also provided for the other participants. Along with the new title, Duplantis therefore also won the largest individual prize in the men's pole vault.
The concept of the Ultimate Championship also differs from the traditional World Championships through its compact schedule. Three evening sessions were designed to deliver a large number of finals in a short period of time, without lengthy qualification rounds in the field events. World Athletics announced that the competition will be held every two years and should become the final major event of the season. Budapest was selected for the first edition partly because of the infrastructure built for the 2023 World Championships, and the competition was held at the National Athletics Centre, adapted to the new format and an audience capacity of around 14,000.
Duplantis became one of the faces of the new competition away from the runway as well
Duplantis's role in Budapest was not limited to the sporting side. World Athletics also involved him in promoting the new championship, and the Swede wrote and recorded the official competition song "Gold". The organisers stated that the song was used as the Ultimate anthem, and it accompanied part of his performance in the pole vault final. In this way, one of today's most recognisable athletes also became a symbol of World Athletics's effort to bring the new format closer to a wider audience through a combination of elite sport, a shorter programme and stronger presentation of the athletes themselves.
For Duplantis, however, the performance on the runway remained the key element. He won the title with 6.20 metres, without a mistake up to the winning height, defeated a direct rival who in the closing stages of the season has been moving ever closer to his level, and immediately afterwards attacked the world record. This time 6.32 metres proved too high, but the Budapest evening once again showed how much expectations in the men's pole vault have changed: for Duplantis, victory at a major competition is often viewed merely as the first part of the task, with the question of the world record almost as a separate continuation of the competition.
The current mark therefore remains 6.31 metres from Uppsala, while 6.20 in Budapest brought Duplantis another title in a season in which he simultaneously had to respond to Karalis's increasingly serious challenge and to his own standards. After 15 world records, two Olympic gold medals and a series of world titles, the inaugural Ultimate Championship added another item to his collection. Since the new competition is designed as a biennial meeting of the world's best athletes, Duplantis's victory in the first edition also set the initial standard for future champions in his discipline.
Sources:
- World Athletics - official report on the men's pole vault final at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, the course of the competition and statements about the performance (link)
- World Athletics - official men's pole vault results in Budapest, final standings and cleared heights (link)
- World Athletics - report on the 6.31-metre world record set by Duplantis in Uppsala on 12 March 2026 (link)
- World Athletics - official results from the meeting in Zürich on 27 August 2026, including Karalis's 6.20 metres and Duplantis's 6.25 (link)
- World Athletics - official information on the format, number of competitors, disciplines and prize fund of the 2026 Ultimate Championship (link)
- World Athletics - overview of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship concept and prizes, including the 10-million-dollar fund and 150,000 dollars for winners (link)
- World Athletics - report from Stockholm on Marschall's victory and Duplantis's first defeat in almost three years (link)
- World Athletics - report from the Diamond League final on Duplantis's withdrawal due to leg tightness and Karalis's victory (link)