Armand Duplantis competes in the men's pole vault final at IAAF World Championships 2019 in Doha, Qatar, October 1, 2019. /VCG Photo
Armand Duplantis of Sweden set a world pole vault record of 6.17 meters at an indoor meeting in Torun, Poland on Saturday.
Duplantis, the 20-year-old who won silver at last year's world championships in Doha, cleared the bar on his second attempt to break the previous record of 6.16m set by French Renaud Lavillenie in February 2014.
"It's something that I wanted since I was three years old," Duplantis told the website of World Athletics.
"It's a big year, but it's a good way to start it."
Lavillenie, the 2012 Olympic champion, said he was not surprised his record had been eclipsed.
"It's not a surprise. For two years now, I knew he had the potential," the 33-year-old Frenchman told RMC Sports after competing at a meeting in Rouen. "Records are made to be beaten. He has got time on his side to definitely do even better, and that's a great thing."
in the men's pole vault final at IAAF World Championships 2019 in Doha, Qatar, October 1, 2019. /VCG Photo
Duplantis' performance marks him out as a clear favorite for the Olympic title in Tokyo this year.
Long considered the one most likely to push the event forward, Duplantis began breaking age group records at seven.
He announced his prodigious talent to a wider audience when he won the European outdoor title in Berlin in 2018 with a vault of 6.05m, a world junior record.
Although born in the U.S. state of Louisiana, he chose to represent his mother's native country of Sweden.
His father Greg, who is his coach, was a talented U.S. pole vaulter.
(With input from Reuters and AFP)