Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's pole vault
| Men's pole vault at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
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| Venue | Olympic Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Date | 8–10 August | ||||||||||||
| Competitors | 32 from 23 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning height | 5.97 OR | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Renaud Lavillenie |
 France
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Björn Otto |
 Germany
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Raphael Holzdeppe |
Germany
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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.
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. The incident has been used in several Olympic bloopers videos.
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.
All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)
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