1900 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Pole Vault (Men)

sport	athletics
discipline	Pole vault
gender	Men
place	Croix Catelan
Attendees	8 athletes from 5 countries
Competition phase	July 15, 1900
Medalist
gold	Irving Baxter ( USA )
silver	Meredith Colket ( USA )
bronze	Carl Albert Andersen ( NOR )

The men's pole vault at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris was decided on July 15, 1900 in the Croix Catelan .

There was a US double victory by gold medalist Irving Baxter and Olympic runner-up Meredith Colket . Third place went to the Norwegian Carl Albert Andersen .

Records

The world records that existed at the time were still unofficial.

World record	3.62 m	United States	Raymond Clapp	Chicago ( USA ), June 18, 1898
Olympic record	3.30 m	United States	William Hoyt	Athens ( Greece ), April 10, 1896

The following records were broken or set in the pole vault at these Olympic Games:

ORe

3.30 m

United States

Irving Baxter

Results

space	athlete	country	Height (m)
1	Irving Baxter	United States	3.30 ( ORe )
2	Meredith Colket	United States	3.25
3	Carl Albert Andersen	Norway	3.20
4th	Eric Lemming	Sweden	3.10
	Jakab Kauser	Hungary
	Émile Gontier	France
7th	Karl Gustaf Staaf	Sweden	2.80
8th	August Nilsson	Sweden	2.60

The US athletes Charles Dvorak , Daniel Horton and Bascom Johnson decided not to participate because their religious beliefs forbade them to compete on a Sunday. The organizers had actually assured the American team management that this competition would be postponed to a weekday, because the three were the world's best pole vaulters at the time. For some inexplicable reason, the competition took place after all - and without informing the American team management. On the following days, two unofficial competitions were arranged for revenge, in which the athletes who did not start were supposed to prove their skills. In both, the winners exceeded the performance of the official Olympic champion. In addition, there was a so-called handicap jumping with a handicap - a form of competition that was also often held in running competitions at the time.

• On Monday, July 16, Bascom Johnson (USA) won with 3.38 m.
• In another competition Daniel Horton won with 3.45 m ahead of Charles Dvorak (both USA) with 3.35 m.
• The Hungarian Jakob Kauser won the handicap jumping with handicap.

Irving Baxter had already won the high jump competition on the same day and only heard from the loudspeaker that his name had been called for the pole vault - he had actually assumed that this discipline had been relocated. He quickly changed his clothes and won his second gold medal.

As with the high jump , all information in the sources used is identical for this competition.

• 

  Double Olympic champion in high and pole vault Irving Baxter, USA

• 

  The US Olympic runner-up Meredith Colket

• 

  The Swedish pole vaulter August Nilsson, Olympic eighth ( left ), and Karl Staaf, Olympic seventh ( right ), in the middle shot putter and discus thrower Gustaf Söderström

literature

• Volker Kluge , Olympic Summer Games - The Chronicle I, Berlin 1997 ( ISBN 3-328-00715-6 )
• Ekkehard zur Megede , The history of Olympic athletics, Volume 1: 1896–1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970

Web links

• SportsReference, Athletics at the 1900 Paris Summer Games: Men's Pole Vault , accessed July 24, 2018
• Olympic Games Paris 1900, Athletics, pole vault men , IOC page on athletics at the 1900 Olympic Games at olympic.org, English, accessed on 24 July 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 1: 1896-1936, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, p. 38