LSU Gold

Mondo Named USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week

by Aaron Hyder
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Mondo Named USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week

Baton Rouge, La. – To no surprise, Mondo Duplantis has been named the USTFCCCA Division I Athlete for his collegiate record setting performance this past weekend at the SEC Championships.

With the LSU men’s track and field team in the midst of a tight team race at the SEC Outdoor Championships, Mondo served as a dominant closer for the second-ranked LSU men’s track and field team. It was his 10 points in the pole vault that gave LSU a commanding six-point lead over Florida heading into the final event of the meet, the 4×400 meter relay.

After securing the title with a clearance at a height of 18′ 5.50” (5.63 meters), Mondo had his sights set on two records – the SEC meet and collegiate record. He first cleared a bar of 19′ 0.75” (5.81 meters) to break Tennessee’s Lawrence Johnson’s SEC meet record (19′ 0.50”) that he registered back in 1994. Once he accomplished that feat, Mondo moved the bar up to 19′ 8.25” (6.00 meters) to take three more shots at Johnson’s collegiate record that was set in 1996. After missing the 19′ 8.25” bar twice, Mondo went up and over the bar on his third attempt to become the outdoor collegiate record holder by three-quarters of an inch.

Duplantis’ second-best clearance of his career in the pole vault set the collegiate record, a 2019 world lead, and made him the 10th man in world history to clear a bar of 6.00 meters (19′ 8.25”) at least twice outdoors during his career. Mondo now owns both the indoor and outdoor collegiate record, and interestingly enough, both of those happened in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This marks the second time in the last three weeks that Mondo has been named the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week.