By Sudipta Biswas

Copyright timesnownews

Sweden’s Armand Duplantis broke the men’s pole vault world record for a record 14th time en route to his gold medal-winning performance at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Monday. It was his third successive Worlds gold. The fascinated audience at Tokyo’s National Stadium stayed long to watch Duplantis break the world record as he became the first human to clear the 6.30m barrier. Duplantis breaking his own world record in every tournament he competes in has now become a regular affair. But how does technology help him stay ahead of himself? For Duplantis’ 14 world record-breaking performances, he has credited his runway speed, which he says gives him the edge over his opponents. To be precise, Duplantis, who was born in the United States and represents Sweden, takes 20 steps down the runway and has the ability to reach 10.3 metres per second at the point of take-off. By comparison, other male pole vaulters might hit 9.4–9.7 m/s. While his human ability is incredible, his specially adapted spikes ahead of his latest world record attempt did not miss the eyes of eagle-eyed fans. The spikes, similar to those worn by three-time 400m hurdles world champion Karsten Warholm, have a hooked spike added to the toe at the front. This “claw” is believed to have helped Duplantis build up speed in quick time and reach greater heights, according to designer Romain Girard. But Duplantis does not wear the spikes for every attempt after cutting his arm on the tip of the spike in past events. The shoes have now been adapted to add a rubber end, but Duplantis concedes he only uses the technology when trying to break the world record. In Tokyo, in his attempt to break the world record, he used a stiffer pole for the third attempt at 6.30m. It gave him extra elevation. “Whenever I think that I have a chance to break world records, I do bring out the claw,” he said. “I would use it every single time if it wasn’t for the fact that I sometimes catch my hands on the inversion part of the jump. If you ever see there’s blood on me, it’s because of that. That’s why I don’t do it every time. When they come out, then you know it’s business time,” said Duplantis. The progress in shoe technology has rewarded athletics immensely. Recently, legendary sprinter Usain Bolt said he would have clocked under 9.50 seconds had he had access to modern carbon-plated shoes. To adapt to the advancement in technology, World Athletics updated its regulations in January 2022. It mandated that shoes could not be used unless they were available to “any athletes participating in applicable competitions,” while also setting technical requirements for the thickness of the sole. Since then, records have continued to tumble. The women’s marathon world record has been broken four times since September 2023. In the men’s event, nine out of the 10 fastest marathons in history have been run by athletes wearing carbon shoes. Despite the modern technology, Bolt’s 100m sprint world record of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin remains unbroken. “I probably would have run way faster if I’d continued and if I knew that spikes would have got to that level maybe I would have, because it would have been great to compete at that level and running that fast,” Bolt had said.