Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis marked his return from a winter break with a stunning jump of 6.10 meters to set a new meet record at the ISTAF Indoor meet in Berlin on Friday.
Competing for the first time since September, the Olympic champion needed two attempts to clear 6.10m -- the best indoor mark so far this season. He attempted to surpassed his own World outdoor record set in Poland last August with two attempts at 6.27, but failed to clear the height.
The 25 year old broke the outdoor record three times last year, including a 6.25m clearance to win his second Olympic gold in Paris. He extended the record by a centimetre to 6.26m in Poland on August 25.
Duplantis has broken the World outdoor record as many as 10 times in his career -- each time by one centimeter -- and the World indoor record five times.
'It was a good season-opener,' Duplantis said. 'Of course, your first competition, there's always a little bit of rust that you kinda have to knock off, but I think the energy of everybody here really really helped me.'
A sell-out crowd of 12,000 at Berlin's Uber Arena roared with every attempt, fueling Duplantis's performance.
'I try to channel the energy that everybody's giving me as much as I can, but at the end of the day, you don't really think about it. You're just trying to make the bar and you're trying to keep it as simple as possible,' said the Olympic champion.
'But of course, you feel it. You feel the energy. You feel everybody. You feel the crowd and the roar and everything like that. And it's very important. It gives you a lot.