Duplantis produces highest-ever outdoor pole vault jump

ROME (Reuters) - American-born Swede Armand Duplantis produced the highest-ever outdoor pole vault jump on Thursday when he cleared 6.15 metres to win gold at the Rome Diamond League meeting.

The 20-year-old cleared the bar at the second attempt with room to spare and was only three centimetres short of the world record he set indoors in Glasgow in February.

Despite that, he decided not to go for a higher mark.

Sergey Bubka’s 6.14 metres mark in 1994 was the previous highest outdoor clearance, but World Athletics has not distinguished between indoor and outdoor records in pole vault since 2000.

(Writing by Brian Homewood, editing by Pritha Sarkar)