Armand Duplantis breaks Renaud Lavillenie's pole vault world record in Poland

Swedish star Armand Duplantis has broken the pole vault world record with a sensational clearance of 6.17metres in Torun, Poland.

Last season’s world championship silver medallist sailed clear on his second attempt at the Orlen Copernicus Cup on the World Athletics Indoor Tour to better the mark of 6.16m set by Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie in 2014.

The vault is the highest in history either indoors or out, with the outdoor record still held by Ukrainian legend Sergey Bubka at 6.14m

Still only 20, Duplantis, who was born and raised in the US by an American father and Swedish mother, has fast become one of the stars of the athletics scene, winning gold at the 2018 European Championships and breaking the world junior record in the process.

He has begun the indoor season in fine form, and earlier this week in Dusseldorf came agonisingly close to breaking the world record, seeming to clear 6.17m, only to knock the bar with his trailing arm on the way down.

In Poland on Saturday, Duplantis brushed aside the field as the only man to clear 5.62m, and after easily going over 6.01m at the first time of asking, lined up another record attempt, failing with his first effort but going clear at the next.

With the World Indoor Championships, due to be hosted by China in March, cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak, this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo stand out as Duplantis’ sole global medal target.