What is the world record for pole vault?

The men's pole vault world record is 6.31 m, set by Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis of Sweden at the Mondo Classic in Uppsala on March 12, 2026 — his 15th world record since 2020. The women's world record is 5.06 m, set by Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia in Zürich on August 28, 2009, and it has stood, unbroken, for over 15 years as of 2026.

How does a pole vault pole work?

A pole vault pole is a flexible fiberglass or carbon-fiber shaft. As the vaulter sprints in and plants it in the box, their forward momentum bends the pole, storing kinetic energy like a giant spring. As the pole straightens, it releases that energy upward, catapulting the athlete over the bar. Stiffer poles store more energy but are harder to bend, so vaulters match pole stiffness and length to their speed and weight.

How many attempts do you get in pole vault?

Each vaulter gets three attempts at every height. Clearing it on any of the three lets them move on to the next height (or pass); missing all three eliminates them from the competition. Athletes may also pass a height entirely to save attempts, but three consecutive misses at the same height or across heights ends their competition.

What happens if two pole vaulters tie?

Ties are broken first by counting who had fewer misses at the height where the tie occurred. If that's still even, the tiebreaker moves to total misses across the whole competition. If athletes remain tied after both checks — and it affects first place — a sudden-death jump-off decides the winner, with the bar raised or lowered one height at a time until only one vaulter clears.

Why do pole vaulters use different poles?

Vaulters carry a personal quiver of poles because pole choice depends on an athlete's approach speed, body weight and grip height, not just the bar height. A faster, heavier vaulter needs a stiffer pole to avoid over-bending and stalling, while a lighter or slower athlete uses a more flexible pole they can actually bend. Elite vaulters may test several poles across a competition as fatigue and conditions change.

How long is a pole vault runway?

World Athletics specifies a runway of at least 40 meters, though most championship venues build them closer to 45 meters to give elite sprinters room to hit full speed before planting. The runway is a straight, flat lane leading directly into the plant box beneath the crossbar and uprights.

Is pole vault dangerous?

Pole vault carries real risk — falls from over 5 or 6 meters onto a foam landing pit, pole snaps, and missed plants can all cause serious injury, which is why coaching technique and pit maintenance are taken seriously. Modern landing pits are 1 to 1.5 meters of layered foam, and rules like the 1983 ban on 'volzing' (steadying a falling bar by hand) exist specifically to reduce injury and unfair advantage.

What is the plant box in pole vault?

The plant box, or vaulting box, is the recessed metal trough sunk into the runway where the vaulter jams the tip of the pole to start the vault. Under World Athletics rules it measures 1.08 m long, 0.6 m wide at the front tapering to 0.15 m at the back, and 0.20 m deep, with a sloped stop board at the rear that the pole tip strikes to trigger the bend.

Pole Vault Explained: Rules, Technique, Equipment and World Records

Pole vault is a track and field event where an athlete sprints down a runway, plants a flexible pole into a sunken box, and rides the pole’s spring-back energy up and over a horizontal crossbar before landing on a foam pit — and as of 2026, the bar for “as high as a human has ever gone” sits at 6.31 meters, set by Sweden’s Armand “Mondo” Duplantis in March 2026. It is one of the most technical events in the full lineup of track and field events, combining a 100-meter-dash-level sprint, gymnastics-level body control, and a piece of equipment — the pole itself — that behaves like a giant leaf spring.

Here is exactly how the event works, what the equipment does, and where the current world records stand.

What is pole vault, in plain terms?

Pole vault asks a simple question with a very hard answer: how high can you go using only your own speed and a bendy pole? The athlete sprints roughly 40–45 meters down a runway carrying the pole, plants its tip into a recessed box at the base of the crossbar, and uses the energy stored in the bending pole to flip upside down and drive their body over a bar suspended between two uprights. Unlike the high jump or long jump, which rely purely on the athlete’s own takeoff power, pole vault outsources a large share of the vertical lift to the pole’s elastic recoil — which is why vaulters can clear heights (over 6 m for men) that are nearly double what the best high jumpers manage.

What equipment does pole vault use?

Four pieces of equipment define the event, and each one is tightly regulated by World Athletics:

The runway — a minimum 40 m straight approach lane (championship venues typically use around 45 m) leading into the box.
The plant box — a metal trough recessed into the runway, 1.08 m long, 0.6 m wide at the front narrowing to 0.15 m at the back, and 0.20 m deep, with an angled stop board the pole tip strikes to begin the bend.
The crossbar — 4.5 m long, resting on small pegs atop the uprights so it dislodges easily on contact rather than causing injury.
The landing pit — a padded mat system, roughly 1 to 1.5 meters of layered foam, positioned beyond the box to absorb falls from well over 5 meters.

Poles themselves are made from fiberglass or carbon fiber (early 20th-century vaulters used bamboo and steel, which is part of why today’s marks dwarf the old ones). Modern poles range from about 3.05 m to 5.30 m long and come in a wide spread of flex ratings tied to an athlete’s weight and speed — a vaulter typically owns a “quiver” of several poles and picks the one matched to how fast they’re running that day.

Equipment	Spec
Runway length	Minimum 40 m (often ~45 m)
Plant box	1.08 m long, 0.6 m → 0.15 m wide, 0.20 m deep
Crossbar length	4.5 m
Landing pit depth	~1–1.5 m of foam
Pole length range	~3.05 m – 5.30 m
Pole material	Fiberglass or carbon fiber

How does a pole vault actually work, step by step?

A single vault is a chain of six phases that all have to line up within about three seconds:

Approach sprint — The vaulter accelerates down the runway carrying the pole level or angled upward, aiming to hit close to top speed right at the box.
Plant and take-off — In the last two strides, the vaulter drives the pole tip down into the box and takes off from the ground, converting horizontal sprint speed into the force that bends the pole.
Swing-up — Hanging from the bending pole, the vaulter swings their legs and hips upward, staying compact to keep energy in the pole rather than losing it to drag.
Extension (rock-back) — As the pole nears maximum bend, the vaulter extends their hips upward and inverts, going fully upside down with feet pointing at the sky, chasing the pole as it starts to recoil.
Turn — Near the top of the pole’s straightening, the vaulter rotates 180 degrees so they now face the crossbar, still rising as the pole unloads its stored energy.
Bar clearance and push-off — The vaulter pushes off the top of the pole with their hands, arches over the bar (the “fly-away”), and releases the pole as their body clears, falling backward onto the landing pit.

Get any one phase wrong — a sprint that’s too slow, a plant that’s late, a swing-up that’s too loose — and the pole never fully unloads, which is why elite vaulting looks effortless but is built on years of drilling each phase separately before chaining them together.

How many attempts do vaulters get, and how are ties broken?

Every vaulter gets three attempts at each height. Clear it and you move on (or can pass to a greater height to save energy); miss all three in a row — whether at one height or spread across consecutive heights — and you’re out of the competition. This is the same three-miss elimination format used in high jump.

If two or more athletes end up tied for a place (most often first), World Athletics breaks the tie in order:

Fewest misses at the height where the tie occurred.
Fewest total misses across the whole competition.
A sudden-death jump-off, with the bar moved up or down until one vaulter clears and the other doesn’t.

One rule worth knowing: “volzing,” where a vaulter or teammate reaches up to steady a bar that’s wobbling but hasn’t fallen, was banned by the sport’s governing body back in 1983 — a clearance only counts if the bar was never touched to save it.

What is the pole vault world record, as of 2026?

Category	Record holder	Mark	Date / venue
Men’s world record	Armand “Mondo” Duplantis (Sweden)	6.31 m	March 12, 2026 — Mondo Classic, Uppsala (indoor)
Men’s outdoor record	Armand “Mondo” Duplantis (Sweden)	6.30 m	September 15, 2025 — World Championships, Tokyo
Women’s world record	Yelena Isinbayeva (Russia)	5.06 m	August 28, 2009 — Zürich
Women’s indoor record	Yelena Isinbayeva (Russia)	5.00 m	February 15, 2009 — Donetsk

Duplantis’s 6.31 m clearance was the 15th time he has broken his own world record since first setting it in 2020, and he’s done it in the same pattern almost every time: one centimeter at a time. That jump also extended a personal winning streak stretching back to August 2023. Isinbayeva’s women’s mark, by contrast, has now stood for more than 16 years — the longest-standing record in the event’s modern era — making it one of track and field’s toughest to reach, let alone break.

Who are the greatest pole vaulters of all time?

Beyond the two current record holders, a short list of names defines the event’s history:

Sergey Bubka (Ukraine/USSR) — the sport’s first true dominator, who broke the world record 35 times across his career and was the first man to clear 6.00 m and 6.14 m before Duplantis eventually surpassed him decades later.
Renaud Lavillenie (France) — held the men’s record at 6.16 m from 2014 to 2020, the mark Duplantis finally broke to begin his current run.
Stacy Dragila (USA) — the first women’s Olympic pole vault champion, at the Sydney 2000 Games when the women’s event debuted.
Katie Moon (née Nageotte) (USA) — Olympic gold medalist and one of the sport’s most consistent modern competitors in the post-Isinbayeva era.

Common pole vault mistakes and misconceptions

A few misunderstandings come up constantly among newer fans and athletes:

“A stiffer pole is always better.” Not true — a pole that’s too stiff for your speed won’t bend enough to store or return energy, so you actually get less lift, not more. Pole choice is about matching stiffness to your own sprint speed and weight, similar to picking the right club length in golf.
“Grabbing the bar to save it doesn’t count against you.” It does — that’s exactly what the 1983 volzing ban outlaws, and it’s ruled a miss.
“Pole vault height is just about jumping high, like the high jump.” Pole vault height comes mostly from converted sprint speed and pole energy, not leg power alone, which is why the technical phases (plant, swing, turn) matter more than raw leaping ability.
“It’s basically a running jump with a stick, like the long jump.” Long jump converts speed into horizontal distance off one takeoff; pole vault converts speed into stored elastic energy that’s released vertically over multiple seconds — a completely different physics problem.

Understanding those six phases and the equipment behind them is really the whole event: everything a vaulter trains for is compressing a fast, straight sprint into one clean plant, one full bend, and one clean release over the bar.