World record holder Mondo Duplantis on the atmosphere in Paris: "I was going down the runway and it was so loud.... It sounded like Tiger Stadium."

Swedish-American athlete Mondo Duplantis made history by breaking the pole vaulting world record on Monday to win a Gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He vaulted 20 feet, 6 inches to break the record for the ninth time in his career.

He ascribed his lack of nerves in the run-up to his final attempt to being used to loud stadiums from his time at LSU, when he got to experience the famously raucous atmosphere at "Death Valley," the nickname given to Tiger Stadium.

“I was going down the runway and it was so loud. It sounded like Death Valley honestly, it sounded like Tiger Stadium. It helped me quite a bit honestly since I’m used to those kinds of crowds at LSU,” Duplantis said to reporters.

Mondo Duplantis and Sha'Carri Richardson's friendship from LSU

Mondo Duplantis has had a long friendship with 100-meter Silver medalist Sha'Carris Richardson. They both joined the LSU Tigers in 2018 and excelled in their respective sports while becoming fast friends.

During their last years in Baton Rouge, they were both up for the prestigious collegiate track and field Bowerman Trophy, which Richardson won.

During the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Richardson showed the esteem with which she holds the record-breaking Mondo Duplantis, excitedly interrupting her interview with NBC to hype him up.

“Oh yes, I saw my Mondo!” Richardson said. “He’s one of my favorite people in life.”

While speaking to reporters at the Diamond League last year, Duplantis spoke about his time at LSU with Richardson, and reminisced about their shared college experience.

“I think it’s a little bit of a surreal situation because time is weird,” Duplantis said. "Everything just goes so fast because it feels like just yesterday we were teenagers, we were just kids and we were Freshmen in college and we were just doing Freshman in college things, just cutting up and being stupid.

"We also both had huge dreams and we knew that we could be in the situation that we are today but everything happened in the way that it has and we actually are doing what we always [hoped], manifesting what we could do."

Duplantis reflected on the fact that they were friends from college and still managed to accomplish so much together.

Duplantis and Richardson are both thriving in the same stages after meeting in college and rising to the top of their respective sports.