Juan Carlo Mercado

Greatness at its finest.

Fighting to rise to the top, Armand Duplantis soared over Emmanouil Karalis, topping the pole vault competition with a staggering 6.27 meters in a single attempt at the All-Star Pole Vault in Clermont-Ferrand, France on Friday.

Photo Courtesy of Sporza.

Before reaching the summit, Duplantis marked the first round just 0.25 meters shy of his current record – 0.27 meters – as he also holds the 1st rank in the World Athletics rankings for the men's pole vault.

Even before setting the new record, it was already the 11th time he had broken his own mark by a centimeter.

The Louisiana-born pole vaulter expressed his experience and the process of hard work as he achieved his new record.

"I just felt really good. What can I say, I came here to do it. I put everything in place to do it. The run-up worked really well. I just did it,” said Duplantis in an interview after his exemplary performance.

"Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, but there's a lot of hard work, hardship, bad days, good days, everything in between that gets you to the easier moments," he added.

Both Olympic bronze medalists Emmanouil Karalis and Duplantis cleared 6.02 meters in the first round, but Karalis forfeited after cramps prevented him from continuing.

This eventually led the World No. 1 pole vaulter to set the bar at 6.07 meters and then 6.27 meters.

His 6.27-meter record is just one of the emphatic jumps that he recorded –  during the Paris Olympics, he notched the gold medal via his 6.25-meter elevation and even extended it by a centimeter during the world outdoor record in Poland on August 25.

The Louisiana-born athlete is far from done, as he aims to rise to the top again in Sweden on March 13 before competing in the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, from March 21 to 23.