Duplantis, 26, won the men’s pole vault title at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and broke his own world record four times this year, raising it to 6.30 metres.
He topped the poll ahead of Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, who won the French Open and US Open.
Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar, who won the Tour de France and and the world road race championship, came in third in the poll, which surveyed journalists from news agencies across Europe.
Tennis star Iga Świątek was the highest-ranked Polish athlete, finishing in 13th place, while ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel was ranked 38th, tied with Belgian basketball player Emma Meesseman and Bulgarian weightlifter Karlos Nasar.
Now in its 68th year, the PAP poll is one of the world’s oldest of its kind, according to the Polish state news agency.
This year, journalists from 23 European news agencies, including France's AFP and Germany’s DPA, selected their picks for the top 10 athletes in Europe.
Polish athletes have won the poll five times. Świątek was voted European Athlete of the Year in 2022, and star soccer player Robert Lewandowski took the title in 2020. Long-distance runner Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak was the inaugural winner in 1958, and track-and-field icon Irena Szewińska, Poland’s most decorated Olympian, won twice, in 1966 and 1974.
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Source: PAP