The Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the pole vault and the Paris Olympic bronze medalist.

Both were born in 1999. Emmanuel Karalis on October 20 and Modo Duplantis on November 10. The first is the fruit of the love of two people from Greece and Uganda, while the second has a father from the USA and a mother from Sweden.

Both fathers have been successful in athletics.

From a young age, Armand and Emmanuel were involved in sports and the pole vault won them over.

The two had their first big… against in 2015. In Colombia. Cali will host the U-18 World Championship.

The Swede is 1st with 5.30 and the Greek 3rd with 5.20m! They stuck together… They got on the podium together and they matched. Since then, in July 2015, 5 years have passed and they have met many more times in the same matches.

In 2016, at the World U-20 in Poland, Modo is on the third step of the podium with a jump of 5.45m and Manolis was in 4th place with 5.40. In July 2016, Karalis is the European champion in Tbilisi, while in the same year, he has achieved the best performance in the world at the Children’s level.

In 2018 at SEF, Karalis will break the world record for teenagers! With a jump of 5.78m, he will take from Duplantis the record (5.75m) he had achieved in 2017 in New York.

At the men’s level, Modo Duplantis escaped. He already has 2 Olympic gold medals and has broken the world record 9 times! Emmanuel Karalis in 2021 was 4th in Tokyo and in the Olympic Games and in 2024 he took off…

He believed in himself more than ever and reached the 3rd step of the podium in Paris, followed by the bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships and the silver at the European Championships.

In February 2020, when Mondo set his 1st world record in Torun, Poland, Karalis rushed to lift him up!

Mondo and Manolo are good friends and the Greek has hosted the Swede and his girlfriend in our country. The world record holder never forgets Karalis and after the final in Paris he said at the press conference:

“It’s great to be at this level and have Emmanuel with me because I feel he played a very important role in my early years on the international stage. We constantly pushed each other to jump higher and many times he was better than me. And Sam Kendricks has forced me into the most losses in my career.

These two athletes helped me achieve distinctions like today’s and I am grateful to them for that.

We’ve been fighting together since we were 14-15 years old, while I’ve been watching Sam for more years. This is all wonderful. I’m at the Olympics, I’m competing with my heart and I’m living it all with good friends by my side. I feel happy and blessed to be able to make my country proud. An incredible day for me.”

Emmanuel Karalis also revealed the message that Duplantis sent him on his mobile phone a few hours before the final. “Your jumps look great. Let’s get on that podium,” the Swede wrote to him.