Armand Duplantis named World Sport Star of the Year at the 2024 BBC Sports awards

Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis was named the World Sport Star of the Year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards after a record-breaking 2024 that saw him defend his Olympic title by breaking the Olympic and world records.

The 25-year-old athletics star won his career’s second Olympic gold medal with a world record-setting attempt at Paris 2024 on 5 August and broke that record again a few weeks later, setting the mark at 6.26m during the Diamond League meet in Silesia, Poland.

Duplantis has now broken the last 10 world records and improved his first record of 6.17, set in February 2020, by almost 10cm. He is the first back-to-back Olympic champion in the men’s pole vault since the 1950s.

Other nominees for the World Sport Star award included USA’s artistic gymnast Simone Biles and basketball player Caitlin Clark, Switzerland’s wheelchair racer Catherine Debrunner, long-distance runner Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands and French swimmer Leon Marchand.

World Cup champion Lionel Messi won the World Sport Star of the Year award in 2022 and Norway’s Erling Haaland claimed the title in 2023.