Athletics at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's triple jump

The Men's Triple Jump event at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Soviet Union had an entry list of 23 competitors, with two qualifying groups (23 jumpers) before the final (12) took place on Friday, July 25, 1980. The top twelve and ties, and all those reaching 16.55 metres advanced to the final. The qualification round was held on Thursday, July 24, 1980.

The Soviet Union's Jaak Uudmäe and Viktor Saneyev won the first two places, ahead of Brazil's world record holder João Carlos de Oliveira. Both de Oliveira and Australia's Ian Campbell produced long jumps, but they were declared fouls by the officials and not measured; in Campbell's case, his longest jump was ruled a "scrape foul", with his trailing leg touching the track during the jump. Campbell insisted he hadn't scraped, and it was alleged the officials intentionally threw out his and de Oliveira's best jumps to favor the Soviets, similarly to a number of other events.

The favorites included João Carlos de Oliveira, the Brazilian who held the world record and had won bronze four years earlier in Montreal, as well as Ian Campbell of Australia, Keith Connor of Great Britain, and the Soviet Union's Jaak Uudmäe and Yevgeni Anikin; all of these jumpers had exceeded 17 m earlier in the year. 34-year-old Viktor Saneyev, the third Soviet jumper, was the defending champion from the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics, but came in with a season best of only 16.78.

All of these athletes qualified for the final; Campbell led with a first-round jump of 17.02, the only athlete to clear 17 metres. He was followed by the other Australian, Ken Lorraway, with 16.80 m.

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