Chicken tikka masala. That is what Mondo Duplantis is calling the reason for the worst 24 hours of his championship life.

“That was the dumbest thing I’ve done in my life. I can’t understand why I ate Indian food before a competition,” the world record holder told Danish broadcaster TV 2 after winning his fourth consecutive European Championships pole vault gold on Sunday night.

“I’ve been in the bathroom all day.”

And still, Duplantis walked onto the runway in Birmingham and cleared 6.15m on his first attempt, taking down his own championship record of 6.10m set in Rome two years ago. Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis took silver at 6.00m, with France’s Baptiste Thiery the bronze at 5.85m.

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The Swede had a warning for anyone else on the athletics circuit.

“Don’t eat chicken tikka masala before a competition,” he said.

A championship record on an empty stomach

His world record stands 16 centimetres higher, at 6.31m, and there was no attempt on it. On this night the story was survival.

“Every time I go to the track I want to leave my mark and do something no one has done before, so the championship record feels really good,” Duplantis said after the competition.

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“This is really special. It has been a funky year by my standards so to come out here and win, that was the most important.”

The food was not the only wrinkle in the build-up. Duplantis pulled out of the London Diamond League last month with a left thigh problem.

“I had a small problem a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted to be cautious,” he said.

‘The gold is for my grandmother’

The heavier thread of the evening had nothing to do with a takeaway. Duplantis’s grandmother died in July at the age of 92, and he dedicated the win to her.

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“The gold is for my grandmother,” he told TV 2.

“It feels really good after some stressful weeks for me. I’m just happy to be here and in shape to compete and take the gold.”

The victory made it four in succession for Duplantis at the European Championships.

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