BATON ROUGE - Former LSU student-athlete Mondo Duplantis is in the running for one of the world's most prestigious athletics awards.

World Athletics announced that Duplantis is one of five finalists for Male Athlete of the Year in the sport of track and field. 

Duplantis set his first pole vault world record of the year on Feb. 8 in Poland. There he cleared 6.17 meters indoors at the Orlen Copernicus Cup, breaking the previous record from 2014.

"I've wanted to break the world record since I was three years old," Duplantis said at the time. "There's no secret to what I do; I just put in a lot of hard work. I can't thank my parents enough for helping me to get to where I'm at now. All the support I had from everybody is the reason why I did this."

Just one week later, he upped his indoor world record to 6.18 meters in Glasgow at the Muller Grand Prix. On Sept. 17,he became the outdoor pole vault world record holder with a clearance of 6.15 meters at the Diamond League Rome meeting. The 6.15 meter clearance bumped off Sergey Bubka's world record of 6.14 meters that had stood since 1994.

H O S S

?? @TV4Sport

pic.twitter.com/11cRtWxL7x

— LSU Track & Field (@LSUTrackField) September 17, 2020

Duplantis finished 2020 with a perfect 16-0 record in pole vault events.

Other finalists include Joshua Cheptegei, Ryan Crouser, Johannes Vetter, and Karsten Warholm as finalists for Male World Athlete of the Year. The male and female World Athletes of the Year will be announced live at the World Athletics Awards 2020, a virtual event on Dec. 5. More information can be found here.