Mondo Duplantis will skip 2027 indoor season to focus on recovery and outdoor campaign

Prioritising recovery over winter competition

Swedish pole vaulter Armand "Mondo" Duplantis announced on 2 October 2026 that he will skip the entire 2027 indoor athletics season. The decision excludes the 26-year-old from the European Athletics Indoor Championships scheduled for March 2027 in Valencia, Spain. This withdrawal represents the third consecutive European indoor tournament the Olympic and world champion has chosen to bypass. His most recent participation at the European Indoor Championships occurred in Torun, Poland, in 2021, where he took the gold medal with a clearance of 6.05 metres. Duplantis indicated that the break is required to allow his body sufficient rest and conditioning following a physically demanding summer schedule.

Duplantis explained his decision to pause competition in an official statement released through Swedish Athletics and social media.

I am making this decision to give my body the recovery and preparation it needs so that I can perform at my peak when I return to competition.

Results and physical setbacks during the 2026 campaign

The hiatus follows a busy 2026 campaign in which Duplantis improved his own world record to 6.31 metres in March, establishing the mark for the 15th time in his career. His season also included competitive hurdles and physical strains across European meets. In June, Australian athlete Kurtis Marschall defeated Duplantis at the Stockholm Diamond League meeting, ending a 40-competition winning streak that had started in the summer of 2023. Duplantis recovered three weeks later to win the Diamond League meeting in Paris, although he did not match his world record height. He later secured the continental title at the European Championships in Birmingham in August.

Physical fatigue affected the closing weeks of his competitive year. Duplantis withdrew from the Diamond League final in Brussels on 4 September 2026 as a precautionary step due to recurring muscle tightness in his leg. He returned to competition one week later on 11 September 2026 at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, Hungary. He won the pole vault event in Budapest with a height of 6.20 metres before calling an end to his 2026 competitions.

Preparation strategy for the 2027 World Championships

Duplantis noted that a congested calendar over the past year left him with limited preparation time for championship events. He explained that managing his physical workload was necessary to maintain high performance in future outdoor campaigns.

My focus will be on training well and preparing for the 2027 outdoor season, which runs from early May to the World Championships in mid-September.

His competition schedule will resume in early May 2027 and continue through the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing, China, scheduled for mid-September. Duplantis, a three-time outdoor world champion, aims to secure another world title in Beijing after claiming titles in previous global tournaments. Swedish Athletics confirmed that his winter training programme will focus entirely on conditioning and recovery. The 26-year-old expressed confidence about returning to full competitive form once the outdoor schedule gets underway.

I look forward to coming back stronger and meeting everyone again during the 2027 outdoor season.