Pole vault rules explained, from the box to the crossbar

A pole vault is judged in about four seconds, and the judge is watching four different things at once. Whether the bar stayed on. Whether anything crossed a line on the ground. Where the vaulter's hands went after the feet left the runway. And whether a hand went anywhere near the bar on the way over.

That is the whole of it, and it is not what most spectators think they are watching. The pole vault rules explained properly are not really about height at all. They are about a line drawn across the ground at the back of a metal box sunk into the runway, a crossbar engineered to fall off at the slightest provocation, and a set of permissions the athlete gets to exercise before the clock starts.

Get those three right and everything else in the event, including the strategy that decides medals between athletes who cleared the same bar, follows from them.

• 3Attempts allowed at each height
• 5Minimum the bar is raised after a round, in cm
• 80Maximum the crossbar may be moved back, in cm
• 4.5Crossbar length in the pole vault, in metres

Values fixed by the World Athletics Technical Rules, not measurements.

Everything is measured from a line called zero

Sunk into the end of the runway is a box, and the back of that box is the origin of the entire event.

The rules specify it precisely. It is a metre long, measured along the inside of the bottom. It is 0.60m wide at the front, where the pole enters, and tapers to 0.15m at the bottom of the stop board it collides with. The base slopes down from runway level at the front to 0.20m below ground where it meets the stop board, and the angle formed between the base and the stop board is 105 degrees. The sides slope outwards and meet the stop board at roughly 120 degrees. The tolerances are a centimetre on the dimensions and one degree, in one direction only, on the angles.

None of that is decoration. The taper funnels a pole that has been planted slightly off line into the corner where it needs to be. The 105 degree angle means the stop board leans away from the vaulter, so a pole driving into it is deflected upward rather than jamming. The depth gives the pole something to bear against as it bends.

51%31%10%

• Length along the inside of the bottom100
• Width at the front end, where the pole enters60
• Width at the bottom of the stop board15
• Depth below runway level at the stop board20

The dimensions set out in Technical Rule 28. Tolerance on each is one centimetre. The length is measured along the inside of the bottom of the box.

Show the numbers

The pole vault box, in centimetres

Item	Value
Length along the inside of the bottom	100
Width at the front end, where the pole enters	60
Width at the bottom of the stop board	15
Depth below runway level at the stop board	20

Now the line. A strip 10mm wide is painted across the runway at right angles to its axis, level with the back end of the box, and its near edge coincides exactly with the back of the box. A matching line, up to 50mm wide, is carried across the surface of the landing area and extended out as far as the outside edge of the uprights. That is the zero line.

Every measurement in the event refers to it. The runway length is measured from it. The distance markers along the runway are set out from it. The crossbar's permitted travel is defined from it. And, most consequentially, the vertical plane rising from it is the boundary that a vaulter must not touch the ground beyond without having cleared the bar.

Pole vault rules explained: the four ways to fail a vault

Technical Rule 28 lists four failures, and the list is exhaustive. Nothing else a vaulter does on the runway is a failure by itself.

The bar does not stay on both pegs because of what the athlete did while vaulting. Note the qualification. It is not "the bar came off". It is the bar coming off because of the athlete's action during the vault. That distinction is doing real work, as the next section shows.

Any part of the body, or the pole, touches the ground beyond the vertical plane through the back end of the box, without the athlete first clearing the bar. The landing area counts as ground for this purpose. This is the failure that catches an aborted attempt where the vaulter has run through and put a foot into the pit.

After leaving the ground, the athlete places the lower hand above the upper one, or moves the upper hand higher on the pole. Climbing the pole in mid-air would be an obvious way to gain height, and the rule closes it. Judges are specifically instructed to watch the hands for the whole vault rather than glancing up at the bar.

During the vault, the athlete steadies or replaces the bar with a hand. The guidance is careful here: incidental contact as the athlete passes the bar is not enough. There has to be some direct action to steady or replace it.

Two notes attached to the rule matter as much as the rule itself.

Running outside the white lines that mark the runway is not a failure. A vaulter who drifts wide on the approach has done nothing wrong, which surprises people who assume a lane is a lane.

And it is not a failure if the pole touches the landing area during the trial, provided it was properly planted in the box first. This one is close to obligatory in practice: a pole bending to something like a right angle will very often sweep the front of the mat beyond the zero line, and the rule exists so that the ordinary mechanics of the event do not disqualify everybody.

The judgements that go the athlete's way

The interpretation guidance published alongside Rule 28 is where the event gets genuinely interesting, because it describes three situations where something that looks like a failure is not one.

Hitting the bar with the pole after the vault. Once a vaulter has cleared and is retrieving the pole, they may well knock the bar or an upright with it. That is not a failure, because it was not the action of the athlete whilst vaulting. There is one condition attached: if the bar was still moving and the judge had not yet raised the white flag, the trial is not yet complete and the dislodgement counts.

The aborted attempt that broke the plane. A vaulter can plant, begin to bend the pole, take off, decide the attempt is wrong and drop back onto the runway. The body or the bend of the pole may well have crossed the vertical plane of the zero line during that. Provided they did not touch the ground beyond the line and there is still time left on their clock, they may simply try again. The same applies to a vaulter who is fiddling with the pole in the box before committing.

A broken pole. If the pole breaks during a trial, it is not counted as a failure and the athlete is awarded a replacement trial. Fibreglass and carbon poles fail explosively and occasionally, and the rule treats it as an equipment event rather than an athletic one.

Then there is the rule that can turn an official into the cause of a failure. After the vaulter releases the pole, nobody, including the vaulter, may touch it unless it is falling away from the bar and uprights. If somebody does touch it and the referee judges that the bar would otherwise have been knocked off, the vault is recorded as a failure. Upright judges therefore have to stand and watch a pole fall towards the crossbar without catching it, which is a difficult instruction to follow and an easy one to get wrong.

1. 1The bar is set to the athlete's declared positionThe vaulter has already told the officials where they want the near edge of the bar, anywhere from directly above the back of the box to 80cm towards the landing area. Once this is done, the clock starts.
2. 2The clock runsOne minute while more than three athletes remain, two minutes with two or three, five minutes for a lone athlete, and three minutes for anyone taking consecutive trials. A yellow flag is normally raised for the final fifteen seconds.
3. 3The approach and the plantRunning outside the white lines is not an offence. The pole is planted into the box, where the taper and the sloping stop board direct it into the corner.
4. 4Judgement one, the plane of the zero lineIf any part of the athlete or the pole touches the ground beyond the vertical plane through the back of the box before the bar is cleared, the trial fails. The pole merely touching the landing area after a proper plant does not count.
5. 5Judgement two, the handsAfter the feet leave the ground, the lower hand may not go above the upper, and the upper hand may not move higher up the pole.
6. 6Judgement three, the barSteadying or replacing the bar with a hand during the vault is a failure. Incidental contact on the way over is not.
7. 7The bar settles and the flag goes upWhite for a valid trial, red for a failure. Until that flag is raised and the bar has stopped moving, the trial is not finished.
8. 8After the flagThe vaulter may retrieve the pole and may even put it back in the box to check a take-off position, provided the trial is over and the next athlete's clock has not started.

The sequence set out in the Technical Rules and the guidance published with them. Steps four to six are judged simultaneously rather than in order; they are separated here because each has its own rule.

The 80cm that changes the shape of the event

Here is the permission most casual viewers do not know exists. The crossbar does not sit in a fixed place.

A vaulter may have the bar moved, in the direction of the landing area only, so that its near edge sits anywhere between directly above the back end of the box and a point 80cm further back. Eighty centimetres is a great deal in an event where a clearance is often a matter of a few centimetres of trajectory.

The reason is the geometry of the vault. A vaulter's body follows an arc determined by where the pole is planted, how high up it they are gripping, and how much of the pole's stored energy is returned as vertical motion. The apex of that arc does not sit above the box. It sits some distance beyond it, and how far beyond depends on the athlete's height, grip and technique. Putting the bar under the apex is the entire point of the adjustment. A tall vaulter with a high grip needs the bar further back than a shorter one gripping lower.

The procedure is tightly controlled. Before the competition starts, each athlete tells the appropriate official what position they want for their first trial, and it is recorded. Any change has to be notified immediately, before the bar has been set according to the previous instruction. Once the clock for the trial has started, the position is locked. Judges are advised to check with an athlete taking consecutive trials whether they want a change before the next clock begins, which is a small courtesy with real consequences.

Three attempts, and the pass that gambles a competition

The trials rule for the vertical jumps produces the strategy that decides most competitions, and it is regularly misunderstood.

An athlete may start at any height the referee has announced and may then vault at whatever heights they choose. Three consecutive failures end the competition for them, and the crucial phrase is that this applies regardless of the height at which the failures occur. Two misses at one bar, a pass, and a miss at the next is three consecutive failures. The athlete is out, despite having had only one attempt at the height that eliminated them.

An athlete may also pass the second or third attempt at a height after failing the first or second, and still vault at a subsequent height. What they cannot do is come back. Once a trial at a height has been passed, that height is closed to them, with a single exception for a jump-off.

The bar itself is governed too. Once the competition is under way, it is never raised by less than 5cm in the pole vault after each round of trials, and the size of the increment may never increase. It can shrink, which is what happens as a competition tightens near the end, and it cannot grow. There are two exceptions. The remaining athletes may all agree to go straight to a record height. And once an athlete has actually won the competition, the heights are theirs to choose in consultation with the judge.

That last provision is why the final bar of a vault competition is often an odd number nobody expected. The winner is no longer competing against anybody, and picks the height they want.

The countback, and why a clean sheet outranks a big number

Two vaulters clear the same final height. There is no jump-off in most cases, and there is no shared medal either. There is a countback, and it runs in a fixed order.

First, the number of attempts at the height last cleared. Whoever needed fewer takes the higher place. A first-time clearance beats a third-time clearance, and it does not matter what happened earlier.

Second, if that is still level, the total number of failures across the whole competition up to and including the height last cleared. Every red flag from every earlier bar comes back into the reckoning.

Third, if the athletes are still equal, they share the place, unless the place in question is first.

For first place, a jump-off may be held. Each athlete takes one attempt at each height. It begins at the next height after the one they last cleared. If more than one clears, the bar goes up by 5cm; if all of them fail, it comes down by 5cm, and they go again. An athlete who declines to jump at a height forfeits any claim to a higher place, and if only one other remains, that athlete wins whether or not they attempt the bar. A jump-off can also be cancelled in advance by the competition regulations, cancelled during the competition by the technical delegate or referee, or abandoned by the athletes themselves, in which case the tie for first simply stands.

Set those rules against each other and the strategy falls out.

Passing a height is a bet. It preserves a clean sheet for the countback and it saves the physical cost of an extra maximal effort, and it puts you one failure closer to elimination at a bar you have not yet tried. Passing after one miss is a bigger bet again: it converts two remaining attempts at a height you know into one attempt at a height you do not.

And because the second tie-break counts every failure in the competition, a vaulter who scrapes over three early bars on the third attempt is carrying a deficit that a first-time clearance at the top will not erase. The countback in the high jump works on the same principles, which is why the two events produce the same kind of endgame despite looking nothing alike.

Tie-break stage	What is compared	Effect
First	Attempts at the height last cleared	A first-time clearance beats any later one
Second	Total failures up to and including that height	Early misses come back into the reckoning
Third	Nothing further, unless it is for first place	The tie stands, or a jump-off is held

The clock, and why the last vaulter gets five minutes

The time allowed for a trial is not fixed. It depends on how many athletes are left, and the pole vault is treated more generously than every other field event.

For the pole vault, the clock starts once the crossbar has been adjusted to the position the athlete asked for beforehand, which is a specific provision that does not apply to the other events. If the time elapses before the vaulter has begun, the trial is a failure. If it elapses after they have started, the trial stands. And an athlete who decides not to attempt the trial after the clock has begun has that recorded as a failure once the period runs out.

• High jump
• Pole vault

More than 3 athletes1min1min

2 or 3 athletes1.5min2min

1 athlete3min5min

Consecutive trials2min3min

The values in the Technical Rules for individual events. The consecutive-trials allowance applies whenever an athlete takes two trials in a row, and overrides the shorter figure. A lone athlete attempting a record gets one minute more than shown.

Show the numbers

Time allowed for one trial, in minutes

Item	High jump	Pole vault
More than 3 athletes	1min	1min
2 or 3 athletes	1.5min	2min
1 athlete	3min	5min
Consecutive trials	2min	3min

Several details sit behind that table. The number of athletes remaining is worked out when the bar is raised to a new height, not continuously, and any change in the allowance does not take effect until the bar moves to a new height. Athletes who could still be involved in a jump-off for first place count as remaining. A clock showing the time left should be visible to the athlete, and an official normally raises a yellow flag for the final fifteen seconds. And when a single athlete has already won and is attempting a record, the allowance is extended by a further minute.

Combined events run on a tighter version of the same table, with the lone athlete getting three minutes in the vault rather than five, which is one of many ways the decathlon and heptathlon compress the individual disciplines. The scoring consequences of that compression are worked through in the piece on how the combined events points tables are built.

The reason for the generosity is straightforward. A vaulter is carrying a pole, adjusting a run-up of forty metres, and about to perform the most dangerous manoeuvre on any athletics programme. Rushing it is a safety question as much as a fairness one.

The pole is the least regulated equipment in athletics

For an event named after its implement, the specification is remarkably short.

The pole may be of any material or combination of materials, and of any length or diameter. The only requirement on the pole itself is that the basic surface must be smooth. There is no weight limit, no length limit, no stiffness class defined by rule. The flex ratings printed on poles are manufacturers' numbers, useful to athletes and coaches and entirely absent from the rulebook.

Tape is regulated more tightly than the pole. At the grip end, layers of tape are allowed to protect the hand, but the taping must be uniform apart from incidental overlap and must not produce any sudden change in diameter. Rings and loops are specifically not allowed, because a ridge to grip against would change the event. At the bottom end, tape or protective material of essentially any kind is permitted, since its purpose is to stop the pole splitting where it hits the box.

Athletes use their own poles. Using somebody else's requires the owner's consent, and a trial completed with a pole the athlete was not entitled to use is judged a failure, even if the breach is only noticed afterwards. Substances may be applied to the hands or the pole for grip, and gloves are permitted, though referees are told to watch the practice in case it starts to look like unfair assistance.

What the rule is really doing is declining to legislate. The pole is a spring: it takes the horizontal kinetic energy of the run-up, stores it as elastic strain in the bend, and returns most of it as vertical motion at the top. Regulating how stiff that spring may be would mean regulating the athlete's mass and speed as well, since the appropriate pole for a vaulter is a function of both. So the rulebook leaves it open and constrains only the things that would let an athlete cheat the grip or the surface.

Where equipment regulation has become far more prescriptive in recent years is footwear, which is now governed by a separate set of rules with sole thickness limits by event. The same argument about where technology stops being equipment and starts being assistance runs through the shoe regulations and the qualification system as it does through the pole.

The crossbar is engineered to fall off

The crossbar has more specification devoted to it than the pole does, and the reason is that its whole job is to come off cleanly at the smallest genuine contact.

It is made of fibreglass or another suitable material, and specifically not metal. It is circular in cross-section except at the ends, and coloured so that sighted athletes can see it. In the pole vault it is 4.50m long with a tolerance of 0.02m, weighs no more than 2.25kg, and the circular part is 30mm in diameter with a millimetre either way.

The end pieces are where the engineering lives. Each is 30mm to 35mm wide and 0.15m to 0.20m long, with one clearly defined flat surface for the bar to rest on. That flat surface may not sit higher than the centre of the bar's vertical cross-section, which keeps the bar's mass above the contact point rather than below it, so it topples rather than settles. The end pieces must be hard and smooth, and must not be rubber or anything else that would increase friction against the supports.

The pegs the bar rests on are constrained in the same direction. They are horizontal, without notches or indentations of any kind, of uniform thickness, no more than 13mm in diameter, and they extend no more than 55mm from the supporting members. Behind them, vertical backings 35mm to 40mm high stop the bar rolling backwards off the pegs, and are built so the bar cannot come to rest on top of them. The pegs may not be rubber, may not be covered with anything that increases friction, and may not have springs of any kind. The distance between them is between 4.28m and 4.37m, which is why a bar 4.50m long has a little to spare at each end.

The sag rules are the neatest part of the specification, because they regulate the bar's stiffness without mentioning materials at all.

• High jump
• Pole vault

Sag in position, unloaded20mm30mm

Sag with a 3kg weight hung at the centre70mm110mm

Two separate rule-defined limits. The first is the sag of the bar resting in position. The second is a test: hang a 3kg weight from the middle of the bar in position and measure how far it drops.

Show the numbers

How much the crossbar is allowed to sag

Item	High jump	Pole vault
Sag in position, unloaded	20mm	30mm
Sag with a 3kg weight hung at the centre	70mm	110mm

A bar that is too stiff would resist being knocked off. A bar that is too floppy would sag into a curve and change the effective height at the middle, where everybody goes over. The two limits bracket the acceptable range from both sides, and the pole vault bar is allowed more of both because it is half a metre longer.

The purpose of all of it is stated plainly in the rule: the bar must fall easily to the ground, in the direction of the landing area, if it is touched by the athlete or the pole. Falling towards the pit rather than back onto the runway is a safety provision as much as a sporting one.

Wind, and the one time a knocked-off bar still counts

Vertical jumps have no wind rule in the sense the sprints and horizontal jumps do. There is no legality limit, no reading beside the result, and no wind-assisted marks. The rules on wind assistance and where they apply simply do not reach the vault, despite wind mattering more here than almost anywhere else on the programme, because a vaulter is carrying a five-metre lever down a runway.

What the rules do address is the bar being displaced by something that is not the athlete. If it is clear that a force not associated with an athlete moved the bar, a gust of wind being the example the rule gives, then one of two things happens. If the displacement occurred after the athlete had cleared the bar without touching it, the trial is successful. In any other circumstance, a replacement trial is awarded.

That first clause is worth stating slowly, because it is counterintuitive and it is real: a bar can end up on the ground and the vault can be recorded as a clearance. The condition is a clean clearance followed by an external force. A judge who saw contact cannot apply it.

The rules also allow an athlete to place padding around the box for extra protection during their trials, provided it goes down within their own trial time and comes away immediately afterwards. At the highest tier of competition the organisers must provide it. That is the sort of provision that only appears in a rulebook after something has gone badly wrong.

The runway, the pit and the numbers along the side

The runway is a minimum of 40m long measured from the zero line, and 45m where conditions permit. Its width is 1.22m with a centimetre of tolerance, marked by white lines 50mm wide. Tracks built before 2004 may have runways up to 1.25m wide, until they are fully resurfaced, at which point they must comply.

Two gradient limits apply. Lateral inclination should not exceed one in a hundred, and in the last 40m the overall downward slope in the direction of running must not exceed one in a thousand. A runway that ran downhill would be a running track with a favour built in, and the tolerance is deliberately close to flat.

Along the side of the runway, organisers should place distance markers: one every half metre between 2.5m and 5m from the zero line, then one every metre from 5m out to 18m. Those markers are how a vaulter and coach set and check a run-up, and they are also how a commentator knows a vaulter has moved their mark back a foot since the last round.

The athlete may use one or two markers of their own alongside the runway, supplied or approved by the organisers, or adhesive tape if none are supplied. Chalk is not allowed, and neither is anything leaving a permanent mark. Each marker has to be a single piece, interpreted sensibly.

The landing area at the top tier of competition is at least 6m long behind the zero line, excluding the front pieces, 6m wide and 0.8m high, with front pieces at least 2m long. For other competitions the minimum is 5m by 5m by 0.8m. The sides nearest the box sit between 0.10m and 0.15m from it and slope away at between 45 and 48 degrees, which is the wedge that keeps a vaulter from landing on a hard edge next to the box. Uprights may be of any style provided they are rigid, and the metal base and the lower part above the landing area must be padded.

Height is measured in whole centimetres, perpendicularly from the ground to the lowest part of the upper side of the bar. A new height is measured before anybody attempts it. If the bar is substituted, it should be measured again. And in any record situation, the judges recheck the measurement before each subsequent attempt if the bar has been touched since it was last measured.

The rules nobody reads until they cost somebody a competition

Three provisions in the general field event rules apply to the vault and catch people out.

An athlete may not leave the immediate area of the event during the competition without the permission of an official, and accompanied by one. A warning should be given first where possible, but repeated or serious cases mean disqualification. An athlete who is simply not present when their trial is called has it recorded as a failure once the time elapses.

If one or more athletes are absent when everybody else has finished, the referee deems that they have abandoned the competition, once the time for one further trial has passed. That is the mechanism that closes a competition rather than leaving it hanging.

And the referee may move the place or time of a competition if conditions justify it, though normally only after a round of trials has been completed. Wind strength and a change of wind direction are expressly not sufficient reason on their own. In a vault competition, where a headwind can make a run-up unusable, that is a hard rule to be on the wrong side of.

What to watch for at the next competition

Four things, and none of them is the height.

Where the bar is set. Watch which vaulters ask for it further back and by how much. It tells you about their grip height and the shape of their vault before they have taken a step.

The pass. When an athlete skips a height, count their consecutive failures. Two misses plus a pass means the next attempt is for their competition, whatever bar it happens to be at.

The mark on the runway. A vaulter moving their check mark back a foot between rounds has decided the pole is not bending enough. Moving it forward means the opposite. The distance markers along the runway make it visible from the stand.

The flag, not the bar. A trial is not over until the bar has stopped moving and the judge has raised the white flag. Everything that happens to the bar before that moment counts, and quite a lot of what happens after it does not.

The vault is the field event where the rulebook is most obviously a safety document wearing a sporting one's clothes. Almost every provision in it, from the sloping stop board to the padded uprights to the five minutes a lone vaulter gets, exists because somebody worked out what happens when a person travelling at speed puts a bending pole into a hole in the ground. The rest of the event-by-event explainers on how athletics is actually officiated show the same pattern, and the throws are where it becomes most explicit, as the javelin rules demonstrate.