An astonishing year full of gold medals and world records has left the pole vaulter believing new frontiers are still possible

We are sitting in a swish Parisian hotel, Mondo Duplantis and I, but his mind is elsewhere. It’s on the runway. Then high in the sky. Bending, arching and twisting over another impossible peak, six metres up and the rest. At the precise point where he knows he has shattered the world record again.

So what are those milliseconds like? “Every one brings a different type of emotion,” he replies. “But in some way, it’s the same. It’s a kind of hysteria.”

• Gjert Ingebrigtsen used to coach Jakob and his brothers
• He ‘punched and kicked’ Jakob since he was a schoolboy

Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s father will stand trial next year on charges that include abusing the double Olympic ­champion and threatening to “beat ­him to death”.

Ingebrigtsen, who won gold medals over 1500m in Tokyo and 5,000m in Paris, also alleges that his father and former coach, Gjert, “punched and kicked” him over a 10-year period from when he was a schoolboy.