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


These are the official results of the men's pole vault event at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. The final was held on Tuesday July 22, 1952.

Summary

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 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.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
The following Olympic record was set during this competition.
DateEventAthleteTimeORWR
22 JulyFinal4.55 mOR

Results

Qualifying round

Qualification Criteria: Qualifying Performance 4.00 m advance to the Final.
RankGroupAthleteNationalityBest heightNotes
1APetro Denysenko4.00
1ATamás Homonnay4.00
1BErkki Kataja4.00
1BRagnar Lundberg4.00
1BJukka Piironen4.00
6AZeno Dragomir4.00
6BDon Laz4.00
6BLennart Lind4.00
6BGeorge Mattos4.00
6BBob Richards4.00
11ARigas Efstathiadis4.00
11BErling Kaas4.00
13BValto Olenius4.00
14BViktor Knyazev4.00
15AVolodymyr Brazhnyk4.00
16ATheodosios Balafas4.00
16ATorfy Bryngeirsson4.00
18BBunkichi Sawada4.00
19BMilan Milakov4.00
20AWalter Hofstetter3.90
21BRon Miller3.90
22ATim Anderson3.80
22AGeoff Elliott3.80
22BZenon Ważny3.80
25AHélcio da Silva3.60
26AGamal El-Din El-Sherbini3.60
BGeorgios Roubanis–NM
BJosé Vicente–NM

Final

The final was held on July 20.
RankAthleteNationality3.603.803.954.104.204.304.404.504.554.60Result
Bob Richards––oooooxoxxoxxx4.55 OR
Don Laz––oooooxoxxx4.50
Ragnar Lundberg––o–oxooxxx4.40
4Petro Denysenko––ooxoooxxx4.40
5Valto Olenius–––oxoxoxxx4.30
6Bunkichi Sawada–oxxoooxxx4.20
7Volodymyr Brazhnyk–oooxoxxx4.20
8Viktor Knyazev–ooxoxoxxx4.20
9George Mattos––oxoxxoxxx4.20
10Erkki Kataja––ooxxx4.10
11Tamás Homonnay–oooxxx4.10
11Lennart Lind–oOoxxx4.10
13Milan Milakov–oxoxoxxx4.10
14Rigas Efstathiadis–ooxxx3.95
14Torfy Bryngeirsson–ooxxx3.95
16Erling Kaas–oxxx3.80
17Theodosios Balafasooxxx3.80
18Jukka Piironen–xoxx3.80
18Zeno Dragomir–xoxx3.80