The men's pole vault at the 2022 World Athletics Championships was held at the Hayward Field in Eugene on 22 and 24 July 2022.Timetable The winning margin was 0.27 metres which as of 2024 is the only time the men's pole vault has been won by more than 0.2 metres at these championships.

Summary The script was written 15 years before 2020 Olympic Champion and World Record holder Armand Duplantis was born. At the time, Sergey Bubka was the dominant pole vaulter. He would go to meets offering large bonuses for a world record, or a major championship. Step 1) get the feel of the runway while the other competitors max out. 2) set the bar to one centimeter above the world record. 3) fly over the bar. 4) collect the money and go home. During that period, Armand's father and coach (along with his mother Helena), Greg Duplantis was sometimes one of those other vaulters, watching. Years later, Yelena Isinbayeva made a career of doing the same thing. The world never got to articulate how good these athletes were at their best, only how good they needed to be to collect the bonus.

There was a $100,000 bonus for setting a World Record at these Championships. It took 5.75m to get into the final. There, 7 got over 5.80m with Duplantis and 2012 Olympic Champion / former World Record holder Renaud Lavillenie both passing. At 5.87m it was down to 7, with Duplantis and Chris Nilsen missing their first attempts, putting first attempt clearance by Ernest John Obiena and 2016 Olympic Champion Thiago Braz into a tie for the lead. At 5.94m, Duplantis and Nilsen cleared on their first attempts to take back the lead after Obiena missed his first attempt before clearing on his second to improve his own Asian record. Braz missed his first two and passed to try to make one last attempt at 6 metres. Duplantis cleared 6 with ease, the others had maxed out, Nilsen left with silver, Obiena bronze. Competition over, next Duplantis had to deal with records, first the Championship record, formerly 6.05m by Dmitri Markov from 2001. He flew over that one. With his name cemented into the record book, the next step, a big step, was the World Record. Duplantis had the bar set at . His first time down the runway, it wasn't right. He aborted the remains of the attempt going under the bar. On his second attempt, he flew over the bar. It was time to celebrate, collect the medal and the paycheck. Duplantis took no further attempts.

The World Record bettered his own world record set indoors by winning the Indoor World Championships on the same script. It also bettered his own outdoor world record of 6.16m set at the Bauhausgalan meet in Stockholm less than a month earlier.

Records Before the competition records were as follows:

RecordAthlete & LocationDate World record6.20 m (i)Belgrade, Serbia20 March 2022Championship record6.05 mEdmonton, Canada9 August 2001World Leading6.16 mStockholm, Sweden30 June 2022African Record6.03 mCologne, Germany18 August 1995Asian Record5.93 mInnsbruck, Austria11 September 2021North, Central American and Caribbean record6.06 mDes Moines, United States27 July 2019South American Record6.03 mRio de Janeiro, Brazil15 August 2016European Record6.20 m (i)Belgrade, Serbia20 March 2022Oceanian record6.06 m (i)Boston, United States7 February 2009

Qualification standard The standard to qualify automatically for entry was 5.80 m.

Schedule The event schedule, in local time (UTC−7), was as follows:

Date Time Round22 July 17:05 Qualification24 July 17:25 Final

Results

Qualification The heats will start on 22 July at 17:05. Qualification: 5.80 m (Q) or at least 12 best performers (q).Pole vault qualificationSUMMARY Pole Vault Men - Qualification

Rank Group Name Nationality 5.30 5.50 5.65 5.75 5.80 Mark Notes 1 A Armand Duplantis – – o o 5.75 1 A Chris Nilsen – o o o 5.75 1 B Oleg Zernikel – o o o 5.75 4 A Thiago Braz – o xxo o 5.75 5 B Ben Broeders – o o xo 5.75 6 B Ernest John Obiena – xo o xo 5.75 6 B Ersu Şaşma o o xo xo 5.75 8 A Renaud Lavillenie – – xxo xo 5.75 9 A Bo Kanda Lita Baehre – o xo xxo 5.75 9 B Menno Vloon o xo o xxo 5.75 9 A Pål Lillefosse – o xo xxo 5.75 9 B Sondre Guttormsen – – xo xxo 5.75 13 A Rutger Koppelaar – o o xxx 5.65 14 A Hussain Al-Hizam xo o o xxx 5.65 15 B Seito Yamamoto o o xo xxx 5.65 15 B Simen Guttormsen o o xo xxx 5.65 17 B Luke Winder xo o xo xxx 5.65 18 A Thibaut Collet – o xxo xxx 5.65 19 A Harry Coppell o o xxx 5.50 19 B Mikko Paavola o o xxx 5.50 19 A Piotr Lisek – o xxx 5.50 22 A Emmanouil Karalis – xo xxx 5.50 22 A Tommi Holttinen o xo xxx 5.50 24 B Huang Bokai – xxo xxx 5.50 24 B Robert Sobera – xxo xxx 5.50 24 A Kurtis Marschall – xxo xxx 5.50 27 A Robert Renner xo xxo xxx 5.50 28 A Germán Chiaraviglio xo xxx 5.30 B Andrew Irwin xxx NM B Augusto Dutra – xxx NM A Torben Blech xxx NM B Valentin Lavillenie – xxx NM

Final The final was started on 24 July at 17:25.RESULTS Pole Vault Men - Final

Rank Name Nationality 5.55 5.70 5.80 5.87 5.94 6.00 6.06 6.21 Mark Notes Armand Duplantis – o – xo o o o xo 6.21 Chris Nilsen o o o xo o xxx 5.94 Ernest John Obiena o xo o o xo xxx 5.94 AR 4 Thiago Braz o o xo o xx– x 5.87 5 Oleg Zernikel o o o xo xxx 5.87 5 Renaud Lavillenie – o – xo xxx 5.87 7 Bo Kanda Lita Baehre xo xo xxo xxo xxx 5.87 8 Ersu Şaşma xo xo o xxx 5.80 = 9 Pål Lillefosse o – xo xxx 5.80 10 Sondre Guttormsen o o xxx 5.70 11 Ben Broeders xxo o xxx 5.70 Menno Vloon xxx NM

References