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Why did Mondo Duplantis represent Sweden ahead of USA? All about the pole vaulting superstar's allegiance explained
Mondo Duplantis represents Sweden in pole vaulting instead of the United States after being persuaded by his former youth coach Jonas Anshelm. The world-record holder is a Swede but was born in USA and also went to college there.
Duplantis was born to an American father and a Swedish mother in a city called Lafayette, which is located in the state of Louisiana. He also attended the Louisiana State University.
However, despite this, he ended up representing Sweden instead of the United States and this was because of the intervention of former Swedish youth coach Jonas Anshelm.
Anshelm said Olympics.com in 2022 how he made sure Duplantis represented the Scandinavian nation.
"He was jumping higher than the most senior jumpers in Sweden, so I didn't have to see a video or something. I definitely wanted him in the team," Anshelm said.
The Swede said that he reached out to Mondo Duplantis' brother Andreas to get their father's number. However, he was told that the then-youngster wanted to represent the United States at the time.
"His older brother Andreas represented Sweden in pole vaulting as well. I went via Facebook contacting Andreas, asking for thr phone number of Greg, Mondo amd Andreas' father, saying that I would like to have Mondo in the Swedish team. At that time, it was a no," he said.
"He wanted to represent the U.S.. As a Swede, and maybe a bit stubborn and stupid, I thought, 'I may give him another call,'" he added.
Anshelm further said that he offered to keep Mondo Duplantis' father as Sweden's national team coach, which turned out to be instrumental, as the athlete pledged his allegiance to the Scandinavian nation.
"What I did mention was that I was very happy if Greg would like to be in the national team as a coach. A couple of weeks later, Greg called me and said 'We're on,'" Anshelm said.
Duplantis is the current world record holder in pole vault at 6.24m, a distance he cleared this year in Xiamen.
Mondo Duplantis has won several laurels for Sweden in pole vault throughout his career
The 24-year-old has won three World Championship medals so far to his name, the first of which was a silver in the 2019 edition in Doha. Three years later, he won gold in the 2022 edition, which took place in Eugene after setting a then-world record of 6.21m.
The following year, Duplantis successfully defended his world title in Budapest after jumping 6.1m.
The Swede also has two World Indoor Championships golds to his name in 2022 and 2024, when the tournament was held in Belgrade and Glasgow, respectively.
His most prestigious achievement, however, came in the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when he cleared 6.02m to win gold, beating out Chris Nilsen and Thiago Braz.
Mondo Duplantis is currently competing at the Paris Olympics, aiming to win a second successive Olympic gold.
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