One of the defining images from the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships came from an 18-year-old Swede soaring over a bar set at an almost mythical height.
In the lead-up to Birmingham 2026, taking place from 10–16 August, we are looking back at 26 Magical Moments from the European Athletics Championships, including Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis becoming the first U20 athlete in history to clear six metres on his way to a memorable European title.
The background
By the time he arrived in Berlin, Duplantis was already regarded as one of athletics' brightest young talents.
Born into a pole-vaulting family in the USA but representing Sweden through his mother, he had been clearing remarkable heights from an early age, breaking multiple age-group world bests throughout his teenage years.
He won the world U18 title in 2015 before adding the European U20 title in Grosseto in 2017 and the world U20 crown in Tampere in 2018, establishing himself as the sport's next great hope.
Despite his junior success, the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships represented an entirely different challenge.
This would be his second senior outdoor major championship after placing ninth at the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London, aged just 17.
And although only 18 years old, he arrived with a personal best of 5.93m—already enough to place him among the world's elite.
In Berlin, his main opposition came from proven performers on the international stage, including France's Renaud Lavillenie, the 2012 Olympic champion, three-time European gold medallist (2010, 2012, 2014) and world record-holder, and Poland's Piotr Lisek, the reigning world silver medallist.
Few expected the teenager not only to win but also to redefine what was possible for a U20 athlete.
What happened?
Duplantis looked composed from the moment the competition began.
He entered at 5.50m, clearing comfortably at the first attempt before doing the same at 5.65m. He needed attempts to clear 5.80m, but it would prove to be his final failure of the competition.
First-time clearances at 5.85m, 5.90m and 5.95m put Duplantis into a seemingly unstoppable groove.
With the bar at six metres, only Duplantis, Lavillenie and Timur Morgunov, competing for the Authorised Neutral Athletes, remained in contention.
Duplantis attacked the height with remarkable confidence and once again produced a flawless first-time clearance to become the first U20 athlete ever to pole vault over six metres.
The stadium erupted.
Morgunov also made a first-time clearance, but Lavillenie and Lisek were unable to go any higher.
That left Duplantis and Morgunov to battle for gold as the bar moved to 6.05m.
Once again, at the first attempt, Duplantis produced another spectacular jump, improving his own fledgling world U20 record.
Morgunov cracked under the pressure and failed with all three attempts, settling for silver as the 18-year-old celebrated gold.
Behind them, Lavillenie took bronze with 5.95m, while Lisek placed fourth with a best clearance of 5.90m. It symbolically marked the passing of the torch to Europe's newest pole vault superstar.
The aftermath
Berlin proved to be the launchpad for one of the greatest careers athletics has ever seen.
Just over a year later, Duplantis claimed silver at the 2019 World Athletics Championships before reaching the top of the Olympic podium in Tokyo in 2021, a feat he repeated in Paris in 2024.
In February 2020, he broke the long-standing world record with 6.17m indoors before improving it again just a week later to 6.18m.
Those were only the beginning.
Over the following years, he repeatedly rewrote the record books, breaking the world record in one-centimetre increments on fifteen occasions while collecting global and European titles with extraordinary consistency.
The record now stands at an enormous 6.31m.
He successfully defended his European crown in Munich in 2022 and again in Rome in 2024, cementing his status as the dominant pole vaulter of his generation.
Yet despite all the records and medals that followed, Berlin remains one of the defining moments of his career.
It was there, aged just 18, that he announced himself to the wider sporting world by winning his first major senior international title.
His historic 6.05m clearance transformed a hugely promising teenager into the sport's newest superstar and ushered in a new era for the men's pole vault—one that continues to reach even greater heights.