Mondo Duplantis is already accustomed to making gravity-defying height look completely routine. Now, the Swedish pole-vault icon is proving just as comfortable hitting high notes as he is soaring over crossbars.
The two-time Olympic champion and serial world-record breaker – having continuously raised the bar to a staggering 6.31m – has officially added recording artist to his glowing resume. Duplantis wrote and performed Gold, the official anthem for the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
Released globally in August, the track forms the primary soundtrack for the high-stakes, three-day showcase. To top off his busy weekend, Duplantis is scheduled to swap his pole for a microphone and perform the anthem live at the closing ceremony on Sunday, 13 September.
It is hardly a one-off gimmick. Duplantis debuted his musical side project with the single Bop in 2025 and has since dropped a string of tracks, quietly accumulating over 11 million Spotify streams. The world champion has even jokingly admitted to harbouring dreams of a future Grammy nomination.
For Duplantis, music serves as a essential mental escape from the intense pressure of elite competition. Crucially, Gold was written to capture the unifying energy and shared spirit of track and field.
He isn’t the only star walking a fine line between sport and sound. American 800m specialist Nia Akins has carved out a parallel career as a singer-songwriter under the moniker Teddy Oliver, using music as her creative refuge.
However, Duplantis has taken the crossover appeal to entirely new heights. While his fellow Ultimate Championship competitors focus strictly on chasing medals and a piece of the lucrative $10m (about R160m) prize purse, the world’s dominant vaulter faces double duty.
Having rewritten the athletics history books one centimeter at a time, Duplantis now prepares to close the biggest new global event of 2026 under the stadium spotlight.
The only remaining question: can the man who routinely elevates his sport bring down the house on stage?
