Newest member of six-metre club, Karalis continues to break barriers

To Emmanouil ‘Manolo’ Karalis, the performances he achieved in 2024 represent more than sporting success – he continued to break barriers.

In Silesia in August, fresh from claiming Olympic bronze in Paris, the Greek star became the 29th pole vaulter in history to vault six metres or more, in the first competition to ever have three athletes clear that height in a single contest.

Karalis is doing great things in what he deems a “golden era” of pole vaulting. As well as the 6.00m clearances by Karalis and USA’s Sam Kendricks during that Wanda Diamond League meeting in Silesia, Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis improved the world record for the 10th time, clearing 6.26m.

Those performances came 20 days after the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where Duplantis set another of his world records – 6.25m – and was joined on the podium by Kendricks, who cleared 5.95m, and Karalis, who soared 5.90m. Karalis went on to clear 5.88m to win at the Boris Hanzekovic Memorial meeting in Zagreb and closed his season with a second-place finish at the Diamond League final in Brussels.

“Of course, getting an Olympic medal is something big, at the age of 24, but my biggest milestone is jumping over six metres. It’s something that I have always dreamed of,” explained Karalis. “I’ve done it and now I feel more confident than ever. I feel that I can start thinking about higher heights.

“That was history,” he added, reflecting on how his six-metre clearance was not only a milestone for himself and his nation, but also the sport. “It was something amazing. With Mondo and Sam and all the other guys, we are really good friends. 

“I’m the same age as Mondo, so I hope we are going to continue – Mondo will do what Mondo does and I hope I can start reaching towards him. It’s a big motivation, having Mondo as a friend and as a competitor, to jump every week. That’s really important to the sport and for pole vault.”

The Paris Olympics offered something of a full circle moment for Karalis, as he gained bronze and Duplantis got gold – nine years on from their respective medals of the same colour at the World U18 Championships in Cali. On both occasions, they received their medals from former world record-holder Sergey Bubka, who in 1985 became the first pole vaulter to clear six metres.

“When I was young, Sergey was one of my biggest idols,” said Karalis. “In Cali, he gave me my first medal, alongside Mondo, and at the Olympic Games he did the same with the same medals – I got bronze and Mondo got gold.

“It’s something great. Him saying that I am a really good pole vaulter – when it comes from him, it’s something amazing.”

Both Karalis and Duplantis have steadily built on their early success, with Karalis going on to become European U18 champion in 2016, a world indoor fifth-place finisher in 2018, European U23 silver medallist in 2019 and 2021, European indoor silver medallist in 2023 and then European silver medallist, world indoor bronze medallist and Olympic bronze medallist in 2024.

While his progress has seen him soar, Karalis has openly talked about the struggles he has encountered during a career of “ups and downs”.

“I’ve been dealing with racism, and I’ve been dealing with depression,” he explained. “I had one or two years where I wasn’t able to perform as well as I wanted, but I believed in myself and had a support system around me. 

“I have my family, of course, and other people around me who support me – my agents, my coaches and my teammates. They have helped me to surpass all those problems and sometimes you need to relax and think about life in general. I was hungrier than ever to be able to come back and compete at the highest level. I’ve been very lucky to have my family around me.”

That’s another reason why his six-metre clearance meant so much. 

“When I was young in Greece, they used to tell me that black people don’t pole vault, but I have become the first black pole vaulter to ever jump six metres,” Karalis said.

“I think I break some barriers for my community – my Greek community, my African community – and I hope a young black kid from Greece or anywhere in the world can see me as someone that broke a barrier, and that being black and doing pole vault is something that you can do and you can do on a high level. I hope I can be someone that can inspire young kids to start pole vaulting.”

Athletics is a family affair for Karalis, whose main coach is his father Charalampos, a former decathlete. He is also supported by his mother Sarah Karali and his twin sister Angeliki Karali, a national age-group heptathlete champion.

Karalis junior was 15 when he matched his father’s pole vault PB of 4.80m and he still has ambitions of trying the decathlon and heptathlon one day.

“My dad is the core and the maestro,” Karalis explained, describing a coaching set up that also sees him guided by Marcin Szczepanski, who works with Polish pole vaulter Piotr Lisek, and George Pomaski, who coaches Greek multiple global long jump gold medallist Miltiadis Tentoglou.

“I train with Miltiadis every day for my technique for running, weightlifting and explosiveness,” said Karalis. “My dad does all my physical preparation to get my body right until it is time for me to go to Poland, where I train with Lisek.

“It’s fun training with other pole vaulters at the same level and I like being in Greece and then going to Poland and on training camps. This set up has worked out really well for me. My dad, of course, he is the project manager.”

Having the opportunity to take some time away from Greece has also helped, as his accomplishments mean Karalis has become an icon in his home country.

“Being the first Greek to ever break six metres… it’s something incredible, it’s something historical. That’s why it’s so big in Greece – we invented the Olympic Games, sport is like a religion in Greece, so after me doing all those things back-to-back, it’s unbelievable,” said Karalis, who was named on the Greek Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list last year.

“In Athens, I can’t dine – everywhere I go now I am recognisable. It’s something new to me. Before, people knew me – I had done national records and I had some medals – but now after the Olympic bronze and after six metres, it’s something really big.”

And while his focus remains on his own performances right now, this increasing stature means he hopes to be able to give back to the sport in other ways in future.

“I want to make an athletic club in my home town and I want to help young people starting pole vaulting,” he said. “Now is not the time because I have to focus on my own sport, but for sure I want to do something to help the younger generations in Greece to get involved.”

 

 

 

 

 

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After taking some time to reflect on 2024 and enjoy a well-deserved break, Karalis returned to training to prepare for another important indoor season, which he will open in Rouen on 24 January to start his journey towards the European Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn and World Indoor Championships in Nanjing. His big target for the outdoor season is understandably the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, the city in which he finished fourth on his Olympic debut.

“Pole vaulting is changing and I think we are in the golden era of pole vaulting,” he said. “Having a guy like Mondo doing magical stuff, it’s something great because the barrier of six metres – now it’s something that is possible for most of us. Every guy on tour that hasn’t jumped six metres, in their mind they are feeling more than capable of it.

“Even if Mondo wasn’t the world record-holder, we have a lot of guys jumping 5.90m and six metres now, there’s a lot of great guys on the circuit. In the future we will see amazing stuff, for sure.

“I really believe that I can be consistent on the six metre bars, and I can’t wait for the future.”

Jess Whittington for World Athletics