Pole vault

Pole vaulting, or pole jumping, is a track and field event where an athlete uses a long, flexible pole—typically made of fiberglass or carbon fiber—to leap over a bar. The practice of using poles to jump dates back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Ireland, but modern pole vaulting as a measured contest was established by German teacher Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths in the 1790s. It has been an Olympic medal event for men since 1896 and for women since 2000.

It is considered one of the four major jumping events in athletics, alongside high jump, long jump, and triple jump. Unlike most track and field events, pole vaulting requires specialized equipment even at a basic level. Many elite vaulters, including world record holders Yelena Isinbayeva and Brian Sternberg, have backgrounds in gymnastics, as the sport demands speed, agility, strength, and technical skill.

**History**

Pole jumping was practiced by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Irish. Egyptian stone engravings from around 2500 BC show spears used to scale enemy structures and cross irrigation ditches. Greek vases depict poles used to jump onto or over objects. From roughly 1800 BC to 550 BC, a similar sport may have been part of the Irish Tailteann Games, though poles were likely used for distance rather than height, as Irish farmers used them to clear canals and rivers. Modern pole vaulting, where height is measured, was first formalized by GutsMuths in the 1790s. He is often called the father of the sport, having described jumping standards, approach distance, hand grip recommendations, and the principles of pole jumping. The sport began in Germany and later spread to the United Kingdom and the United States. The first recorded English competition with measured height took place in 1843 at the Ulverston Football and Cricket Club in Lancashire. Pole vault was included in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.

Early poles were made of ash or hickory wood. Bamboo poles appeared in 1904, and aluminum and steel poles followed after 1945. Fiberglass poles gained attention in the American press in the early 1960s. John Uelses set a new world record with one on February 2, 1962. In February 1963, UCLA’s C. K. Yang and two other vaulters surpassed the standing world record within nine days using fiberglass poles. However, fiberglass poles were not new; Herb Jenks had been making them since 1948, the year Bob Mathias first used one, and Mathias used a fiberglass pole when he won the decathlon at the 1952 Olympics.

James Monroe Lindler of Columbia Products Company filed a patent on March 10, 1967—granted January 27, 1970—for a hollow vaulting pole with an integral helical winding and its manufacturing method. The process involved winding resin-impregnated glass fiber tape around a metal mandrel, baking it, then removing the mandrel to leave a hollow tube. This method was based on a 1954 patent for fiberglass golf clubs by the Woolley Manufacturing Company.

In September 2005, Jeffrey P. Watry, Ralph W. Paquin, and Kenneth A. Hursey of Gill Athletic filed a patent for a new winding method, called Carbon Weave, where glass fibers are layered in different directions to give specific properties to different parts of the pole. The patent was granted on October 21, 2008. David J. Dodge and William C. Doble of Alliance Design and Development Group received a patent in 2006 for "sports equipment having a tubular structural member," leading to carbon fiber vaulting poles in 2007.

In 2000, IAAF rule 260.18a was amended so that world records (as opposed to indoor world records) could be set in a facility with or without a roof. This change was not applied retroactively. Because many indoor facilities do not meet outdoor track specifications for size and flatness, pole vault was the only world record set indoors until 2022.

**Modern Vaulting**

Today, pole vault is one of the four jumping events in track and field. Like the high jump, it is a vertical jump, so competitions are run similarly. Athletes choose the height at which they enter. Most competitions include warm-up periods or open practice jumps for athletes waiting to jump. Warm-up vaults are allowed if an athlete passes certain heights or has not jumped for a set time. Once entered, each athlete gets three attempts to clear a height. If successful, they move to the next height with three more attempts. After three consecutive misses, the vaulter is eliminated, and the highest cleared height determines the winner.