WATCH: Aussie pole vaulter Kurtis Marschall joins six-metre club with stellar jump in France
Kurtis Marschall was already a world championship medallist and a Commonwealth Games champion.
Now, after a major career breakthrough that had the Aussie pole vault star in raptures, he is a member of the six-metre club.
Marschall, 28, cleared six metres for the first time in his career at the All Star Perche meet in France on Monday (AEDT).
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The three-time Olympian became the 31st pole vaulter in history to clear six metres and only the fourth Aussie, matching Steve Hooker, Dmitri Markov and Paul Burgess, his former coach.
Marschall tumbled down from the towering height, saw the bar was still in place and sprang off the mat. Oozing pride, relief and sheer delight, he thrust his arms in the air.
"NEVER give up on your dreams," he wrote in an Instagram post showing his breakthrough vault. "6m."
Marschall's competitors, including Swedish superstar Armand "Mondo" Duplantis, the greatest pole vaulter of all time, were quick to congratulate him.
Duplantis, inevitably, won the competition, looping himself over a bar set at 6.06m. His world record is 6.30m, a gigantic 14 centimetres ahead of number two on the all-time list.
In third place, behind Marschall, was Emmanouil Karalis of Greece, the bronze medallist at the Paris 2024 Olympics and silver medallist at the Tokyo world titles last year. Karalis cleared 5.90m on Monday (AEDT).
For just shy of three years, Marschall's personal best had remained 5.95m. He vaulted 5.95m to win bronze at the 2023 world championships in Budapest, and to again claim bronze at last year's world titles in Tokyo.
He is expected to be among the Australian athletics team's top medal contenders at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Australia's Nina Kennedy, who's close mates with Marschall, will be out to defend her Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles.
Kennedy has said publicly she wants to break the women's pole vault world record — the 5.06m registered by Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva in 2009.
Kennedy's personal best is 4.91m.
"YES YES YES," she commented on an Instagram post about Marschall's six-metre jump.
