Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's pole vault

Men's pole vault at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Stadium
Date	8–10 August
Competitors	32 from 23 nations
Winning height	5.97 OR
Medalists
Renaud Lavillenie  France Björn Otto  Germany Raphael Holzdeppe  Germany

Official Video Highlights

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics
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	women
Road events
Marathon	men	women
20 km walk	men	women
50 km walk	men
Field events
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men	women
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men	women
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men	women
Combined events
Heptathlon		women
Decathlon	men

The Men's pole vault competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. The event was held at the Olympic Stadium on 8–10 August.^[1]

Nobody took an attempt at the auto-qualifying mark. As it turned out, it took a clean round through 5.50 to make the final.

Four of the 14 finalists only cleared 5.50. Four passed to 5.65 where defending champion, oft injured Steven Hooker and former world champion Brad Walker failed to clear their opening height. The medals were decided at 5.85, Renaud Lavillenie clearing on his first attempt, Björn Otto on the second and Raphael Holzdeppe on his third. The two Germans cleared 5.91 on their first attempt, while Lavillenie missed. So Lavillenie strategically passed to 5.97. On his second attempt, it was all or nothing. Lavillenie cleared it cleanly. In silver medal position on fewer misses, Otto passed to hope for a miracle at 6.02 while Holzdeppe failed at 5.97 and took the bronze. Otto's attempt at 6.02 was close but a failure. With the gold in hand Lavillenie took his remaining couple of attempts at 6.07.

During one part of the competition, Cuban Lázaro Borges was attempting to mark 5.35 metres when his pole broke into three pieces.^[2] The incident has been used in several Olympic bloopers videos.

Competition format

The competition consisted of two rounds, qualification and final. In qualification, each athlete had three attempts at each height and was eliminated if he failed to clear any height. Athletes who successfully jumped the qualifying height moved on the final. If fewer than 12 reached that height, the best 12 moved on. Cleared heights reset for the final, which followed the same three-attempts-per-height format until all athletes reached a height they could not jump.^[3]

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Sergey Bubka (UKR)	6.14 m A	Sestriere, Italy	31 July 1994
Olympic record	Steven Hooker (AUS)	5.96 m	Beijing, China	22 August 2008
2012 World leading	Renaud Lavillenie (FRA)	5.97 m	Helsinki, Finland	1 July 2012

The following new Olympic record was set during this competition:

Date	Event	Athlete	Time	Notes
10 August	Final	Renaud Lavillenie (FRA)	5.97	OR

Results

Qualifying round

Qual. rule: qualification standard 5.70m (Q) or at least best 12 (q) qualified.

Rank	Group	Name	Nationality	5.20	5.35	5.50	5.60	5.65	Result	Notes[4]
1	B	Raphael Holzdeppe	Germany	–	–	–	xo	o	5.65	q
1	B	Renaud Lavillenie	France	–	–	xo	-	o	5.65	q
3	A	Konstadinos Filippidis	Greece	–	o	o	o	-	5.60	q
4	A	Yevgeny Lukyanenko	Russia	–	–	xxo	o	-	5.60	q
4	A	Romain Mesnil	France	–	xo	o	xo	-	5.60	q
4	B	Brad Walker	United States	–	–	xxo	o	-	5.60	q
7	B	Dmitry Starodubtsev	Russia	–	xo	xo	xo	-	5.60	DSQ
8	A	Łukasz Michalski	Poland	–	xo	xxo	xo	-	5.60	q
9	B	Igor Bychkov	Spain	o	-	o	xx-	x	5.50	q
9	A	Steve Hooker	Australia	–	-	o	-	-	5.50	q
9	B	Jan Kudlička	Czech Republic	–	o	o	-	-	5.50	q
9	A	Steven Lewis	Great Britain	–	–	o	-	-	5.50	q
9	A	Malte Mohr	Germany	-	-	o	-	-	5.50	q
9	A	Björn Otto	Germany	–	–	o	-	-	5.50	q
15	A	Jeremy Scott	United States	–	o	xo	xxx	-	5.50
16	B	Lázaro Borges	Cuba	–	xxo	xo	xxx	-	5.50
16	B	Sergey Kucheryanu	Russia	–	xxo	xo	xxx	-	5.50
18	B	Nikita Filippov	Kazakhstan	o	o	xxx	-	-	5.35
18	A	Maksym Mazuryk	Ukraine	-	o	xxx	-	-	5.35	DSQ[5]
20	A	Ivan Horvat	Croatia	o	xo	xxx	-	-	5.35
20	B	Yang Yansheng	China	-	xo	xxx	-	-	5.35
22	B	Mareks Ārents	Latvia	xo	xo	xxx	-	-	5.35
23	B	Stanislau Tsivonchyk	Belarus	xo	xxx	-	-	-	5.20
24	A	Edi Maia	Portugal	xxo	xxx	-	-	-	5.20
N/A	B	Jere Bergius	Finland	-	xxx	-	-	-	NM
N/A	A	Fábio Gomes da Silva	Brazil	–	–	xxx	-	-	NM
N/A	B	Alhaji Jeng	Sweden	-	xxx	-	-	-	NM
N/A	A	Kim Yoo-Suk	South Korea	xxx	-	-	-	-	NM
N/A	B	Derek Miles	United States	xxx	-	-	-	-	NM
N/A	B	Paweł Wojciechowski	Poland	-	xxx	-	-	-	NM
N/A	A	Seito Yamamoto	Japan	-	xxx	-	-	-	NM
N/A	B	Denys Yurchenko	Ukraine	-	xxx	-	-	-	NM

Final

Rank	Name	Nationality	5.50	5.65	5.75	5.85	5.91	5.97	6.02	6.07	Result	Notes
	Renaud Lavillenie	France	–	o	o	o	x-	xo	x-	xx	5.97	OR
	Björn Otto	Germany	o	o	xo	xo	o	xx-	x		5.91
	Raphael Holzdeppe	Germany	–	xo	xo	xxo	o	xxx			5.91	PB
4	Steven Lewis	Great Britain	xo	–	xo	xxx					5.75
4	Yevgeny Lukyanenko	Russia	xo	–	xo	xxx					5.75	SB
6	Konstadinos Filippidis	Greece	o	xo	xxx						5.65
7	Jan Kudlička	Czech Republic	o	xxo	xxx						5.65
8	Malte Mohr	Germany	o	–	xxx						5.50
8	Romain Mesnil	France	o	xxx							5.50
10	Łukasz Michalski	Poland	xo	xxx							5.50
11	Igor Bychkov	Spain	xxo	xxx							5.50
N/A	Brad Walker	United States	–	xxx							NM
N/A	Steve Hooker	Australia	–	xxx							NM
-	Dmitry Starodubtsev	Russia	o	xo	o	xxx					5.75	DSQ

References