The best pole vaulter in, say, the United States can walk into any crowded downtown square and go entirely unrecognized. Armand “Mondo” Duplantis, of Sweden, can’t enjoy such anonymity in his country. To be fair, Duplantis isn’t just the best pole vaulter in Sweden. He’s the best in the world, and in fact, the best to ever hurl himself 20 feet in the air to clear a bar, having broken the world record on eight different occasions. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Still, we’re talking about pole-vaulting here.