Athletics at the 2020 Summer Olympics – Men's pole vault

		Armand Duplantis	Sweden
		Chris Nilsen	United States
		Thiago Braz	2024  →

Athletics at the 2020 Summer Olympics
Qualification
Track events
100 m	men		women
200 m	men		women
400 m	men		women
800 m	men		women
1500 m	men		women
5000 m	men		women
10,000 m	men		women
100 m hurdles			women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men		women
3000 m steeplechase	men		women
4 × 100 m relay	men		women
4 × 400 m relay	men	mixed	women
Road events
Marathon	men		women
20 km walk	men		women
50 km walk	men
Field events
High jump	men		women
Pole vault	men		women
Long jump	men		women
Triple jump	men		women
Shot put	men		women
Discus throw	men		women
Hammer throw	men		women
Javelin throw	men		women
Combined events
Heptathlon			women
Decathlon	men
v t e

The men's

It took a clean round of 5.65 metres to get into the final, 11 of the 14 finalists cleared 5.75 in qualifying. Seven jumpers made 5.80 metres, with Lavillenie passing and failing at the next heights. At 5.87 metres, Duplantis passed, only Braz and Chris Nilsen cleared. Duplantis cleared 5.92 metres on only his third jump of the competition. Nilsen cleared on his second attempt. Braz couldn't, leaving him for the bronze. Duplantis cleared 5.97 metres and Nilsen answered with a personal best. At 6.02 metres, Duplantis cleared again, still perfect. Nilsen took three attempts to join the 6 metres club but couldn't. Now as the winner, Duplantis could choose his next height to attempt. Instead of attempting to beat Braz' Olympic Record of 6.03 metres, he asked for 6.19 m (20 ft 3+1⁄2 in), a new world record. His first attempt saw his hips and body up around 6.50m, but he came back brushing the bar on his way down. He aborted his second attempt and the third was close.^[4]

Silver medalist Nielsen was full of praise for the winner, Armand Duplantis. He compared the competition against Duplantis that evening as being a regular footballer "trying to emulate Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo" and that his superiority over the world's best pole vaulters was "impressive and ridiculous".^[5]

Background

This was the 29th appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics.

2016 bronze medalist and 2017 and 2019 world champion Sam Kendricks of the United States qualified but had to withdraw due to a positive COVID-19 test.^[6]

For the second consecutive Games, no nations made their men's pole vault debut. The United States made its 28th appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the boycotted 1980 Games.

Qualification

A

NOCs can also use their universality place—each NOC can enter one male athlete regardless of time if they had no male athletes meeting the entry standard for an athletics event—in the pole vault.[7]

Entry number: 32. Qualified by Entry Standard: 22. By World Rankings Position, to complete the required entry number: 10. By Universality Places: 0

Qualification standard	No. of athletes	NOC	Nominated athletes
Entry standard – 5.80
	3	France	Ethan Cormont Renaud Lavillenie Valentin Lavillenie
	3	Germany	Torben Blech Bo Kanda Lita Baehre Oleg Zernikel
	3	United States	Sam Kendricks KC Lightfoot Chris Nilsen
	2	Brazil	Thiago Braz Augusto Dutra
	2	Poland	Paweł Wojciechowski
	1	Australia	Kurtis Marschall
	1	Belgium	Ben Broeders
	1	Great Britain	Harry Coppell
	1	Netherlands	Menno Vloon
	1	Norway	Sondre Guttormsen
	1	Philippines	EJ Obiena
	1	ROC[Note RUS]	Timur Morgunov
	1	South Korea	Jin Min-sub
	1	Sweden	Armand Duplantis
	1	Turkey	Ersu Şaşma
World ranking	2	Greece	Konstantinos Filippidis Emmanouil Karalis
	2	Japan	Seito Yamamoto Masaki Ejima
	1	Argentina	Germán Chiaraviglio
	1	China	Huang Bokai
	1	Italy	Claudio Stecchi
	1	Netherlands	Rutger Koppelaar
	1	Poland	Robert Sobera
	1	Sweden	Melker Svärd Jacobsson
Total	31

Competition format

The 2020 competition continued to use the two-round format introduced in 1912. There were two distinct rounds of vaulting with results cleared between rounds. Vaulters were eliminated if they had three consecutive failures, whether at a single height or between multiple heights if they attempt to advance before clearing a height.

The qualifying round had the bar set at various heights up to a qualifying standard of 5.80 metres. All jumpers clearing that standard advanced to the final. A minimum of 12 jumpers advanced; if fewer than 12 achieve the qualifying standard, the top 12 (including ties after use of the countback rules) advanced. It has been common in recent Games for few enough vaulters to achieve the last height below the qualifying standard that none even attempt the qualifying standard.

The final had jumps starting typically just below the qualifying standard and increasing gradually. The final continued until all jumpers were eliminated.^[10]

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world, Olympic, and area records were as follows.

World record	Armand Duplantis (SWE)	6.18	Glasgow, United Kingdom	15 February 2020
Olympic record	Thiago Braz da Silva (BRA )	6.03	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	15 August 2016

Area	Height (m)	Athlete	Nation
Africa (records)	6.03	Okkert Brits	South Africa
Asia (records)	5.92	Igor Potapovich	Kazakhstan
Europe (records)	6.18 WR	Armand Duplantis	Sweden
North, Central America and Caribbean (records )	6.06	Sam Kendricks	United States
Oceania (records)	6.06	Steven Hooker	Australia
South America (records )	6.03 OR	Thiago Braz	Brazil

Schedule

All times are

The men's pole vault took place over two separate days.^[1]

Results

Qualifying

Qualification Rules: Qualifying performance 5.80 (Q) or at least 12 best performers (q) advance to the Final.

Rank	Group	Athlete	Nation	5.30	5.50	5.65	5.75	Height	Notes
1	B	Bo Kanda Lita Baehre	Germany	–	o	o	o	5.75	q
	B	Christopher Nilsen	United States	–	o	o	o	5.75	q
3	B	Armand Duplantis	Sweden	–	xo	o	o	5.75	q
	A	KC Lightfoot	United States	o	xo	o	o	5.75	q
5	A	Kurtis Marschall	Australia	–	o	xxo	o	5.75	q
6	A	Renaud Lavillenie	France	–	xxo	xo	o	5.75	q
7	B	Menno Vloon	Netherlands	o	o	o	xo	5.75	q
8	B	Thiago Braz	Brazil	–	xo	o	xo	5.75	q
	A	Emmanouil Karalis	Greece	o	o	xo	xo	5.75	q, SB
10	A	Ernest John Obiena	Philippines	–	o	o	xxo	5.75	q
11	B	Piotr Lisek	Poland	–	o	xxo	xxo	5.75	q
12	B	Harry Coppell	Great Britain	o	o	o	xxx	5.65	q
	B	Ersu Şaşma	Turkey	–	o	o	xxx	5.65	q
	A	Oleg Zernikel	Germany	–	o	o	xxx	5.65	q
15	A	Robert Sobera	Poland	–	x–	o	xxr	5.65
16	A	Augusto Dutra de Oliveira	Brazil	o	o	xo	xxx	5.65
17	A	Valentin Lavillenie	France	o	o	xxo	xxx	5.65
18	B	Ben Broeders	Belgium	–	xo	xxo	xxx	5.65
19	B	Matt Ludwig	United States	o	o	xxx	—	5.50
	A	Jin Min-sub	South Korea	o	o	xxx	—	5.50
21	B	Huang Bokai	China	xo	o	xxx	—	5.50	=SB
22	B	Konstantinos Filippidis	Greece	o	xo	xxx	—	5.50
	B	Ethan Cormont	France	o	xo	xxx	—	5.50
24	A	Sondre Guttormsen	Norway	–	xxo	x–	—	5.50
25	A	Torben Blech	Germany	o	xxx	—		5.30
	A	Masaki Ejima	Japan	o	xxx	—		5.30
	B	Seito Yamamoto	Japan	o	xxx	—		5.30
28	A	Pawel Wojciechowski	Poland	xo	xxx	—		5.30
—	A	Claudio Stecchi	Italy	xxx	—			NM
—	B	Germán Chiaraviglio	Argentina	—				DNS

Final

Rank	Athlete	Nation	5.55	5.70	5.80	5.87	5.92	5.97	6.02	6.19	Height	Notes
	Armand Duplantis	Sweden	o	—	o	—	o	o	o	xxx	6.02
	Christopher Nilsen	United States	o	o	xo	o	xo	o	xxx	—	5.97	PB
	Thiago Braz	Brazil	o	xo	xo	o	xxx	—			5.87	SB
4	Emmanouil Karalis	Greece	o	o	o	xxx	—				5.80	=PB
	KC Lightfoot	United States	o	o	o	xxx	—				5.80
6	Piotr Lisek	Poland	o	x–	o	xxx	—				5.80
7	Harry Coppell	Great Britain	o	xo	xo	xxx	—				5.80	SB
8	Renaud Lavillenie	France	—	o	—	x–	xx	—			5.70
9	Oleg Zernikel	Germany	xo	o	xxx	—					5.70
10	Ersu Sasma	Turkey	o	xo	xxx	—					5.70
11	Bo Kanda Lita Baehre	Germany	o	xxo	xxx	—					5.70
	Ernest John Obiena	Philippines	o	xxo	xxx	—					5.70
13	Menno Vloon	Netherlands	o	xxx	—						5.55
—	Kurtis Marschall	Australia	xxx	—							NM

References