PARIS — LSU beat Ole Miss in an SEC showdown in the men’s pole vault at the Paris Olympics.

Armand “Mondo” Duplants, an LSU alum who competes for Sweden, set a world record by clearing 6.25 meters (20 feet, 6 inches) to win the gold medal, while former Ole Miss standout and Mississippi native Sam Kendricks got silver.

Greek jumper Emmanouil Karalis won the bronze with a height of 5.90 meters (19 feet, 4 1/4 inches).

Duplantis broke the world record for the ninth time in his stellar career. He last did it in April, when he cleared 6.24 meters in the Xiamen Diamond League.

“I haven’t processed how fantastic that moment was,” Duplantis said. “It’s one of those things that don’t really feel real, such an out-of-body experience. It’s still hard to kind of land right now.”

The 24-year-old Duplantis was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. His father is American and his mother Swedish, which is how he is able to compete under Sweden’s flag. He spent one season at LSU in 2019 before turning pro.

Duplantis won his second Olympic gold medal and repeated as champion after also winning in Tokyo in 2021.

“What can I say? I just broke a world record at the Olympics, the biggest possible stage for a pole vaulter,” Duplantis said. “(My) biggest dream since a kid was to break the world record at the Olympics, and I’ve been able to do that in front of the most ridiculous crowd I’ve ever competed in front of.”

Duplantis won the gold medal when he cleared 6.00 meters — Kendricks missed all three attempts at that height — and then kept going. Duplantis cleared 6.10 meters (20 feet, 1/4 inch) to set the Olympic record, and then 6.25 meters to better his own world record by one centimeter.

Duplantis missed his first two attempts at 6.25 and then cleared the bar on the third try.

“I tried to clear my thoughts as much as I could,” he said. “The crowd was going crazy. It was so loud in there, it sounded like an American football game. I have a little bit of experience being in a 100,000-capacity stadium, but I was never the center of attention. (I was) just trying to channel the energy everybody was giving me, and they were giving me a lot of it. It worked out.”

Kendricks, a 31-year-old Oxford native, won two NCAA national championships at Ole Miss in 2013 and 2014. He had a season-best height of 5.95 meters (19 feet, 6 1/4 inches) on Monday to add a silver Olympic medal to the bronze he won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

Kendricks qualified for the Tokyo Games in 2021, but was barred from competing because of a positive COVID test.

Kendricks is only the third athlete in U.S. history to qualify three times in the men’s pole vault, along with Bob Richards (1948, 1952, 1956) and Earl Bell (1976, 1984, 1988).