By Amy Tennery
(Reuters) – American Sydney McLaughlin and Sweden’s Armand “Mondo” Duplantis were named World Athletes of the Year on Monday, after a record-breaking 2022 that saw them each collect gold a the world championships.
McLaughlin whipped the Eugene, Oregon, crowd into a frenzy when she won the 400 meters hurdles in a breathtaking 50.68 seconds, shattering her own record that she set less than a month earlier at the same track.
The 23-year-old Olympic gold medalist helped the United States to gold in the 4×400 meters relay as well, tantalizing fans when she suggested she could set her sights on the 400 meters flat next.
“Everything we aimed to do, we accomplished,” McLaughlin said in a post on the World Athletics Twitter page. “There’s more possible, and I think as a whole this generation of athletes is figuring out there’s a lot more we can do.”
Duplantis underlined his claim as the greatest-ever pole vaulter when he cleared a record 6.21 meters (20.37 feet) to collect gold in Eugene, the third time he broke the world record in 2022.
The 23-year-old Duplantis is the first pole vaulter to collect gold at the Olympics, World Championships, World Indoor Championships, World Junior Championships, World Youth Championships and European Championships.
“I try not to put limits on myself,” Duplantis tweeted. “I can definitely jump higher than I’ve jumped right now. So I guess we’ll see how high, but I want to push it higher than people think is even possible, that’s for sure.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
