Athletics at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's pole vault

Bob Richards was the returning bronze medalist. His closest domestic competitor was Don Laz, who shared the US championship earlier in the year after 4 years of Richards dominance. In the final both remained clean to 4.40m, just ahead of Ragnar Lundberg and Petro Denysenko, who each had one miss earlier. Lundberg had passed at 4.10m, which became significant because neither could go any higher. While modern rules would make that a tie, in that era, the third tiebreaker was the number of attempts, which gave Lundberg the bronze medal. Both Richards and Laz cleared the next height, 4.50m on their second attempts, still tied. They remained tied to their final attempt at 4.60 m (15 ft 1 in) when Laz missed and Richards cleared it to take his first gold medal. Richards defended the championship four years later, jumping 1 cm higher and went on to Wheaties box fame. No other man has defended the pole vault title, though Yelena Isinbayeva defended the women's title in 2008.

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

World record	Cornelius Warmerdam (USA)	4.77 m	Modesto, United States	23 May 1942
Olympic record	Earle Meadows (USA)	4.35 m	Berlin, Germany	5 August 1936

The following Olympic record was set during this competition.

Date	Event	Athlete	Time	OR	WR
22 July	Final	Bob Richards (USA)	4.55 m	OR

• Official Olympic Report, la84.org.