Due to a minor leg injury, Mondo Duplantis decided at the last minute to withdraw from the Wanda Diamond League final at the Allianz Memorial Van Damme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I would have loved to have fought out a thrilling duel with Mondo, but unfortunately injuries are just part and parcel of our sport,\u201d said Karalis. \u201cHis withdrawal gave someone else the chance to win, and I\u2019m absolutely delighted that I seized that opportunity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Karalis won with a jump of 6.12 metres, one centimetre higher than the meeting record set by Duplantis in Brussels in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is my first victory in a Diamond League final, a trophy that symbolises the fact that I\u2019m currently living my dreams.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The stadium was packed with Greeks. It\u2019s incredible how many of my compatriots were here tonight. This year I\u2019ve received support and appreciation from all over the world, and that makes this period in my career extra special. I\u2019m immensely grateful to be where I am today,” said the surprise Greek winner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DUPLANTIS DISAPPOINTED<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How serious is Duplantis\u2019s injury? \u201cThe problem with my leg started in London,\u201d explained the Swede. \u201cSince then, it\u2019s actually felt fine and I\u2019ve put a lot of work into it, but in Zurich the pain came back. I carried on anyway, probably pushing myself a bit too hard.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019d told myself I wouldn\u2019t jump if I felt that irritation again during the warm-up. That\u2019s why I took the difficult decision not to compete. The worst thing that can happen is having to withdraw from a competition. The fans wanted to see a great show, and I would have loved to give them that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s incredibly difficult, but that\u2019s life, and that\u2019s the life of an athlete too. There\u2019s a lot going through my mind. I\u2019m trying to stay calm and positive. Whether I\u2019ll make it to next week\u2019s Ultimate Championships in Budapest remains to be seen. At the moment, I don\u2019t have an answer to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No Mondo Duplantis, but Manolo Karalis. The Greek athlete won the Wanda Diamond League final at...","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":7662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-7671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brussels-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7672,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions\/7672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7671"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brussels.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=7671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}