What is Pole Vaulting? In this discipline, athletes vault over a 4.5 meters long horizontal bar with a flexible pole. It’s origin began in Ancient Greece and the modern form comes from Lancashire (England) in 1843 where the first height-based competitions were held. In the 1850s, German gymnastics associations adopted those formats and the first events included using ash or hickory poles with iron spikes. Then in 1857, bamboo poles were used the first time and in the 1940s steel poles were introduced. Finally in the 1950s, carbon fibre and fiberglass have been utilized for poles until today. For men, the Pole Vault event has been included in the Olympic program for every modern Olympics since 1896 and for women it was introduced in 2000.

Technique
The first aspect of the correct method would be the grip. Athletes hold the pole vertically and keep one hand at their hip while the other hand is kept about 10cm in front of the chest above elbow height. Next part of the Technique is the Approach, in which athletes accelerate down the hallway while gradually lowering the pole as they encounter the stop board. Athletes also raise their rear hand above the waist and the other hand controls the pole.

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For the take-off, athletes plant the pole inside of a metal box and push it against the stop board while they extend their body and raise their pole. After that, they take off with the jump foot, bring the other knee forward and bend the pole.

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Then, athletes swing up their legs by pushing their arms back until they are parallel with the floor. Next phase would be the Extension as the pole will be bended as much as possible and athletes now have to straighten their legs and push their hips forward in order to bring their feet above their head to drive to the sky. In the vertical position, athletes turn their body 180 degrees as they reach maximum height so they can surpass the bar. At the end the vaulter falls on a mat with his back.

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The box in which the athletes put in their poles is usually 1.08 meters long, 0.6 meters wide at the front and 0.15 meters at the inside back and 0.2 meters deep. Furthermore, the length of a pole can be between 4 and 5.2 meters long and mostly depends on skill speed and height or preferences of the athlete.
World Records
First official men’s World Record was set in 1912 by Marc Wright, a pole vaulter from the United States. He was the first athlete to ever clear the 4 meter mark with his result of 4.02 meters. From then on, athletes progressed rapidly and in 1963, the 5 meter mark was already broken. Today, Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis from Sweden holds the World Record, leaving a gap between him and other competitors. In 2024,heset his eighth suggestive record with 6.24 meters. For the women it’s Yelena Isinbayeva from Russia with 5.06 meters.

Pole Vault
Pole vault – Wikipedia