Pole Vault

The pole vault at the Summer Olympics is grouped among the four track and field jumping events held at the multi-sport event. The men's pole vault has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since the first Summer Olympics in 1896. The women's event is one of the latest additions to the programme, first being contested at the 2000 Summer Olympics – along with the addition of the hammer throw, this brought the women's field event programme to parity with the men's.

The Olympic records for the event are 5.97 m (19 ft 7 in) for men, set by Renaud Lavillenie in 2012, and 5.05 m (16 ft 6³⁄₄ in) for women, set by Yelena Isinbayeva in 2008. Isinbayeva's 2008 mark was a world record at the time and her 2004 victory in 4.91 m (16 ft 1¹⁄₄ in) had been the first women's world record in the pole vault to be set at the Olympics. In spite of its longer history, the men's Olympic event has only seen two world record marks – a clearance of 4.09 m (13 ft 5 in) by Frank Foss at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics and Władysław Kozakiewicz's vault of 5.78 m (18 ft 11¹⁄₂ in) to win at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

History, Records and Statistics of Men's Pole Vault

History, Records and Statistics of Women's Pole Vault

Medalists

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1896 Athens	William Hoyt  United States	Albert Tyler  United States	Evangelos Damaskos  Greece
			Ioannis Theodoropoulos  Greece
1900 Paris	Irving Baxter  United States	Meredith Colket  United States	Carl Albert Andersen  Norway
1904 St. Louis	Charles Dvorak  United States	LeRoy Samse  United States	Louis Wilkins  United States
1908 London	Edward Cook  United States	none awarded	Edward Archibald  Canada
			Clare Jacobs  United States
	Alfred Gilbert  United States
			Bruno Söderström  Sweden
1912 Stockholm	Harry Babcock  United States	Frank Nelson  United States	William Halpenny  Canada
			Frank Murphy  United States
		Marc Wright  United States
			Bertil Uggla  Sweden
1920 Antwerp	Frank Foss  United States	Henry Petersen  Denmark	Edwin Myers  United States
1924 Paris	Lee Barnes  United States	Glen Graham  United States	James Brooker  United States
1928 Amsterdam	Sabin Carr  United States	William Droegemueller  United States	Charles McGinnis  United States
1932 Los Angeles	Bill Miller  United States	Shuhei Nishida  Japan	George Jefferson  United States
1936 Berlin	Earle Meadows  United States	Shuhei Nishida  Japan	Sueo Ōe  Japan
1948 London	Guinn Smith  United States	Erkki Kataja  Finland	Bob Richards  United States
1952 Helsinki	Bob Richards  United States	Don Laz  United States	Ragnar Lundberg  Sweden
1956 Melbourne	Bob Richards  United States	Bob Gutowski  United States	Georgios Roubanis  Greece
1960 Rome	Don Bragg  United States	Ron Morris  United States	Eeles Landström  Finland
1964 Tokyo	Fred Hansen  United States	Wolfgang Reinhardt  United Team of Germany	Klaus Lehnertz  United Team of Germany
1968 Mexico City	Bob Seagren  United States	Claus Schiprowski  West Germany	Wolfgang Nordwig  East Germany
1972 Munich	Wolfgang Nordwig  East Germany	Bob Seagren  United States	Jan Johnson  United States
1976 Montreal	Tadeusz Ślusarski  Poland	Antti Kalliomäki  Finland	David Roberts  United States
1980 Moscow	Władysław Kozakiewicz  Poland	Tadeusz Ślusarski  Poland	none awarded
		Konstantin Volkov  Soviet Union
1984 Los Angeles	Pierre Quinon  France	Mike Tully  United States	Earl Bell  United States
			Thierry Vigneron  France
1988 Seoul	Sergey Bubka  Soviet Union	Radion Gataullin  Soviet Union	Grigoriy Yegorov  Soviet Union
1992 Barcelona	Maksim Tarasov  Unified Team	Igor Trandenkov  Unified Team	Javier García  Spain
1996 Atlanta	Jean Galfione  France	Igor Trandenkov  Russia	Andrei Tivontchik  Germany
2000 Sydney	Nick Hysong  United States	Lawrence Johnson  United States	Maksim Tarasov  Russia
2004 Athens	Timothy Mack  United States	Toby Stevenson  United States	Giuseppe Gibilisco  Italy
2008 Beijing	Steve Hooker  Australia	Yevgeny Lukyanenko  Russia	Derek Miles  United States
2012 London	Renaud Lavillenie  France	Björn Otto  Germany	Raphael Holzdeppe  Germany
2016 Rio de Janeiro	Thiago Braz da Silva  Brazil	Renaud Lavillenie  France	Sam Kendricks  United States

Multiple medalists

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Bob Richards	United States (USA)	1948–1956	2	0	1	3
2	Bob Seagren	United States (USA)	1968–1972	1	1	0	2
	Tadeusz Ślusarski	Poland (POL)	1976–1980	1	1	0	2
	Renaud Lavillenie	France (FRA)	2012–2016	1	1	0	2
5	Wolfgang Nordwig	East Germany (GDR)	1968–1972	1	0	1	2
	Maksim Tarasov	Russia (RUS)  Unified Team (EUN)	1992–2000	1	0	1	2
7	Shuhei Nishida	Japan (JPN)	1932–1936	0	2	0	2
	Igor Trandenkov	Russia (RUS)  Unified Team (EUN)	1992–1996	0	2	0	2

Medalists by country

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	19	14	13	46
2	France (FRA)	3	1	1	5
3	Poland (POL)	2	1	0	3
4	Soviet Union (URS)	1	2	1	4
5	Unified Team (EUN)	1	1	0	2
6	East Germany (GDR)	1	0	1	2
7	Australia (AUS)	1	0	0	1
	Brazil (BRA)	1	0	0	1
9	Germany (GER)[nb]	0	2	3	5
10	Finland (FIN)	0	2	1	3
	Japan (JPN)	0	2	1	3
	Russia (RUS)	0	2	1	3
13	Denmark (DEN)	0	1	0	1
	West Germany (FRG)	0	1	0	1
15	Greece (GRE)	0	0	3	3
	Sweden (SWE)	0	0	3	3
17	Canada (CAN)	0	0	2	2
18	Spain (ESP)	0	0	1	1
	Italy (ITA)	0	0	1	1
	Norway (NOR)	0	0	1	1
	Ukraine (UKR)	0	0	0	0

• ^nb The German total includes teams both competing as Germany and the United Team of Germany, but not East or West Germany.

Intercalated Games

The 1906 Intercalated Games were held in Athens and at the time were officially recognised as part of the Olympic Games series, with the intention being to hold a games in Greece in two-year intervals between the internationally held Olympics. However, this plan never came to fruition and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later decided not to recognise these games as part of the official Olympic series. Some sports historians continue to treat the results of these games as part of the Olympic canon.

Continuing its presence since the first Olympics, a men's pole vault event was contested at the 1906 Games. France's Fernand Gonder entered as the world record holder and delivered by winning in an Olympic record-equalling mark. The runner-up, Bruno Söderström of Sweden, also won a javelin throw medal that year. Ed Glover, the American champion, was the bronze medallist.

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1906 Athens	Fernand Gonder (FRA)	Bruno Söderström (SWE)	Ed Glover (USA)

Women

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2000 Sydney	Stacy Dragila  United States	Tatiana Grigorieva  Australia	Vala Flosadóttir  Iceland
2004 Athens	Yelena Isinbayeva  Russia	Svetlana Feofanova  Russia	Anna Rogowska  Poland
2008 Beijing	Yelena Isinbayeva  Russia	Jennifer Stuczynski  United States	Svetlana Feofanova  Russia
2012 London	Jennifer Suhr  United States	Yarisley Silva  Cuba	Yelena Isinbayeva  Russia
2016 Rio de Janeiro	Katerina Stefanidi  Greece	Sandi Morris  United States	Eliza McCartney  New Zealand

Multiple medalists

Rank	Athlete	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Yelena Isinbayeva	Russia (RUS)	2004–2012	2	0	1	3
2	Jennifer Suhr	United States (USA)	2008–2012	1	1	0	2
3	Svetlana Feofanova	Russia (RUS)	2004–2008	0	1	1	2

Medalists by country

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	2	2	0	4
2	Russia (RUS)	2	1	2	5
3	Greece (GRE)	1	0	0	1
4	Australia (AUS)	0	1	0	1
	Cuba (CUB)	0	1	0	1
6	Iceland (ISL)	0	0	1	1
	New Zealand (NZL)	0	0	1	1
	Poland (POL)	0	0	1	1

Non-canonical Olympic events

In addition to the main 1900 Olympic men's pole vault, a handicap competition was held four days later. The joint fourth place finishers in the main event took the top two spots, with Jakab Kauser posting a mark of 3.45 m with a handicap of 45 cm, and Eric Lemming coming second with his result of 3.40 m with a 30 cm handicap. Meredith Colket, the silver medallist in the main event registered 3.20 m with a handicap of 15 cm.Two further non-handicap "scratch" competitions were held that are no longer considered canon Olympic events: the American champion Bascom Johnson won an event on July 16, then three days later Daniel Horton (a triple jump competitor) defeated Charles Dvorak in a consolation event – both had missed the final proper as it was held on the Sabbath. Dvorak went on to win the Olympic pole vault gold in 1904.

The handicap event returned at the 1904 Summer Olympics. LeRoy Samse, the runner-up in the main Olympic pole vault, won with 3.58 m and a handicap of one inch. Walter Dray, sixth in the Olympic event, came second with 3.58 m and a ten inch handicap, while Olympic fifth placer Claude Allen recorded 3.55 m off a seven inch handicap.

These events are no longer considered part of the official Olympic history of the pole vault or the athletics programme in general. Consequently, medals from these competitions have not been assigned to nations on the all-time medal tables.