Mondo was the man of the hour 👑! Again! With his 6.16m (more than 20 feet, 2 inches) clearance at the Diamond League meeting in front of his home crowd in Stockholm, Sweden, he beat his outdoor pole vault world record by one centimeter last Thursday. The PUMA athlete now has broken the indoor and outdoor world records a combined six times in the last two and a half years. Mondo is truly BORN TO FLY and we can’t wait to see what he has in store this month at the 2022 World Championships in Athletics in Eugene, USA.   The 22-year-old Swede has recalibrated the limits of the pole vault. In Stockholm the Olympic and world indoor champion took full advantage of near-ideal conditions – and the inspiring home-town setting. Mondo sailed over 5.63m, 5.83m, 5.93m and 6.03m before taking his two attempts at 6.16m. “I wanted to come here today and do something special. I felt in shape and I have great support here in Stockholm where I live now. It’s my home, so it means extra more.”, Mondo said after the competition. “This is the time I wanted to be in my best shape. I feel like I am definitely in shape to win the title and maybe do something special in Eugene.”, he continued. We have been warned! 🦅   Congratulations, Mondo, from your PUMA Fam!

Before winning her gold medal at the World Indoor Championships, high-jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh had to take a 60-hour car trip to get away from the bombs and rockets that fell on her home country Ukraine. With a resilience and confidence that makes everyone forget that she is only 20 years old, Yaroslava says that she won to protect her country on the athletics track. As part of our “She Moves Us” series, CATch up sat down with Yaroslava to talk about her beginnings in the sport, her emotional victory in Belgrade and her ambitions. Born in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, Yaroslava dreamed of a creative profession when she was in school: “I wanted to become an artist, because I painted a lot. I also thought of becoming a singer.” Things changed when she started with track and field, first as a hurdler and later as a high jumper. “I was about 11 when I started. I trained for five years. Then I realized that I wanted to train for the Ukrainian Championship and after that I started competing internationally,” she added. Her teachers weren’t too sure about her career choices and pointed out that she shouldn’t neglect her studies because of her sports. “Those teachers said that athletics was just a hobby and I shouldn’t take it too seriously. But I told them: ‘No, I want to be an athlete. And once I’m done with my career as an athlete, I want to be a coach.’ I told them: ‘I will do this!’,” Yaroslava recalls. Her determination paid off. At 15-years-old, she won the gold at the U18 World Championships in Nairobi, followed by another gold at the U18 European Championships. With her jump of 1.92 meters in Nairobi, she put up the best performance ever by a 15-year-old. “Those teachers changed their minds,” Yaroslava says smiling.  

PUMA Athlete Karsten Warholm has been nominated for two awards, and you can vote for him! Karsten has been nominated for “IAAF Male World Athlete of the Year” and “European Male Athlete of the Year” and you can vote for him on social media! All you have to do is like, share or retweet! Just last month, he took the gold medal over 400m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships in Doha, the crowning achievement of a very successful season, which included winning the Diamond League and setting a new European record of 46.92 seconds. Karsten, who is still only 23 years old, joined the PUMA family earlier this year.  

We are still amazed! PUMA athlete Molly Seidel ran a stunning race in the women’s marathon at the Olympics GamesTMto secure the bronze medal in her third-ever marathon with a time of 2:27:46. Molly ran a strong race from the start with her Deviate Nitro Elite Spectra. It is the first Olympic medal for Molly and the first one for our Deviate Nitro Elite High-Performance Running Shoes. We asked Erin Longin (Global Director, Run/Train), Romain Girard (Senior Head of Innovation) & Fabio Silva (Director Branch Operation Footwear) about the personal relationship with Molly, the feeling of seeing her outstanding performance and the share that the Nitro product range has in the success.