Robert Eugene Richards is an American athlete who made three U.S. Olympic Teams in two events: the 1948, 1952, and 1956 Summer Olympics as a pole vaulter and as a decathlete in 1956.
Stacy Renée Dragila is an American former pole vaulter.
Toby "Crash" Stevenson is an Olympic class pole vaulter from the United States. He is known for being the only pole vaulter in the international elite to wear a helmet during jumps.
Brad Walker is an American pole vaulter. He was the American recordholder and was the 2007 World Champion in the event.
Giuseppe Gibilisco is an Italian bobsledder and former pole vaulter, who won the 2003 World Championships with a personal best of 5.90 m. He followed this with a bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics.
Timothy "Tim" Mack is an American pole vaulter who won the gold medal at the 2004 Olympics.
Jan Johnson is an American former athlete who competed mainly in the pole vault. He graduated in 1972 from the University of Alabama, where he holds the school record in the pole vault at 18 feet, 1/2 inch.
Derek Miles is an American pole vaulter, from Tea, South Dakota. A former pole vaulter for The University of South Dakota Track and Field team, Miles is currently an assistant coach for the Coyotes. In 2004, he placed seventh in the Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Miles was originally at fourth place in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, but Ukrainian Denys Yurchenko who originally finished third, was disqualified in November 2016 due to use of dehydrochlormethyltestosterone. On 17 April 2017, Derek Miles received the Olympic bronze medal.
Jennifer "Jenn" Suhr is an American pole vaulter. She has been an Olympic and World champion, has been ranked #1 in the World, has been the #1 American pole vaulter since 2006, and has won a total of 17 US National Championships. She holds the world indoor pole vault record at 5.03 m. She holds the American women's pole vault record indoors. In 2008, she won the U.S. Olympic trials, setting an American record of 4.92 m and won a silver medal in the Beijing Olympics. She won the gold medal at the London Olympics on August 6, 2012. Track & Field News named her American Female Athlete of the Year for 2008.
Björn Otto is a retired German pole vaulter.
April Steiner Bennett is an American pole vaulter. Her personal best is 4.63 metres (15.2 ft), achieved in April 2008 in Norman, Oklahoma.
Rex J. Harvey is an American decathlete. He has designed and holds patents of several nozzles for aircraft engines. Also, he helped design several nuclear reactor power plants. Harvey is a native of Redfield, Iowa and currently resides in Mentor, Ohio.
The Women's Pole Vault event at the 2003 Pan American Games took place on Saturday August 9, 2003. USA's Melissa Mueller set a new Pan Am record with a leap of 4.40 metres.
Albert Richmond "Boo" Morcom was an American track and field athlete.
Jillian Schwartz is an American-born female former pole vaulter who competed internationally for Israel. She represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics and competed at five consecutive World Championships in Athletics from 2003 to 2011. Her best placing in international competition was fourth at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships.
Lacy Janson is an American track and field athlete who specialized in the pole vault. She was the 2010 USA indoor champion in the event and represented her country at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships. At college level, she won both an outdoor and an indoor NCAA title for Florida State University.
The men's pole vault field event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place on September 1 & 2. Controversy arose when the new Cata-Pole, used by defending champion Bob Seagren and Sweden's Kjell Isaksson, was declared to be illegal, by the IAAF, on 25 July. The pole was banned based on the fact that the pole contained carbon fibers; after an East German-led protest revealed that it contained no carbon fibers, the ban was lifted on 27 August. Three days later the IAAF reversed itself again, reinstating the ban. The poles were then confiscated from the athletes. Seagren and Isaksson believed this gave other athletes, like the eventual gold medalist, Wolfgang Nordwig, an unfair advantage, since he did not use or train on the pole. Seagren and Isaksson were given substitute poles which they had never used before to jump with. Isaksson, who had lost the world record to Seagren only 2 months earlier, didn't clear a height in the qualifying round and was eliminated. After Seagren’s last vault he was so incensed by the way IAAF officials handled the event, he took the pole he had been forced to vault with and handed it back to IAAF President Adriaan Paulen.
This is the progression of world record improvements of the pole vault W60 division of Masters athletics.
This is the progression of world record improvements of the pole vault W65 division of Masters athletics.
Sandi Morris is an American pole vault record holder. She won the silver medal in the pole vault event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She also won silver at the pole vault event at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics. In 2018 she won gold at the World Indoor Championships. Morris has a personal best vault of 4.95 m indoor, set on March 12, 2016 in Portland, Oregon. She matched this height at the 2018 World Indoor Champships when setting a new championship record. July 23, 2016, Morris cleared 4.93 m at American Track League in Houston at Rice University breaking Jennifer Suhr's American outdoor record in the pole vault. Morris cleared 5.00 m at 2016 IAAF Diamond League Memorial Van Damme in Brussels on September 9, 2016 to set the U.S. women's outdoor pole vault record.
