1904 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Pole Vault (Men)

sport	athletics
discipline	Pole vault
gender	Men
Attendees	7 athletes from 2 countries
Competition location	Francis Field
Competition phase	September 3, 1904
Medalist Charles Dvorak ( USA )   LeRoy Samse ( USA )   Louis Wilkins ( USA )

Olympic champion Charles Dvorak, USA

The men's pole vault at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis was held on September 3, 1904 at Francis Field .

The US team celebrated a triple success. The winner was Charles Dvorak , LeRoy Samse won the silver medal. Louis Wilkins won bronze.

Records

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

World record	3.69 m	United States	Norman Dole	Oakland ( USA ) April 23, 1994
		France	Fernand Gonder	Paris ( FRA ), June 26, 1904
Olympic record	3.30 m	United States	William Hoyt	Final of Athens ( GRE ), April 10, 1896
		United States	Irving Baxter	Paris finals ( FRA ), July 15, 1900

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

OR

3.505 m

United States

Charles Dvorak

Result

Result according to Kluge - SportsReference space Surname country height   1 Charles Dvorak  United States 3.50 m OR 2 LeRoy Samse  United States 3.35 m Decision. in the 2nd stitch. 3 Louis Wilkins  United States 3.35 m 4th Ward McLanahan  United States 3.35 m Decision. in the 2nd stitch. 5 Claude Allen  United States 3.35 m 6th Walter Dray  United States 3.00 m 7th Paul Weinstein  Germany 3.00 m

Result to the Megede - IOC page space Surname country height 1 Charles Dvorak  United States 3.50 m OR 2 LeRoy Samse  United States 3.43 m 3 Louis Wilkins  United States 3.43 m 4th Ward McLanahan  United States 3.35 m 5 Walter Dray  United States k. A. 6th Claude Allen  United States 7th Paul Weinstein  Germany

Charles Dvorak was the first pole vaulter to use bamboo sticks instead of the usual ash or hickory wood. After he was established as the Olympic champion, he tried his hand at the new world record of 3.71 m, but failed in three attempts. After being one of the favorites four years earlier because of the annoying Sunday problem , which led to numerous athletes not taking part in competitions on Sundays for religious reasons, Dvorak made up for what he had missed here in St. Louis won Olympic gold. Not among the participants in these games was the French co-owner of the world record Fernand Gonder , who might have been a serious competitor for Charles Dvorak.

The most likely variant of the other placements can be found in the representation described in SportsReference . The corresponding list of results corresponds to the list at Kluge . The results at zur Megede and on the IOC website differ. There, however, everything indicates that apparently no distinction was made between the main competition and the jump-off, which would explain the differences. However, the difference in the ranking for places five and six cannot be explained. That has to remain open here and can only be compared, as is done in the tables above. In the following the representation with stabbing fights as with SportsReference is described.

Louis Wilkins, LeRoy Samse, Claude Allen and Ward McLanahan had each traversed 3.35 m. There was no failed attempt or multiple attempt rule, so the decision had to be made in a jump-off. Here Allen and McLanahan only managed 3.275 m, while Wilkins and Samse jumped 3.43 m. The decision between the two jumpers at the same height was then made in a second series of play-offs, the performances of which are not recorded.

• 

  Gold medalist Charles Dvorak during one of his jumps

• 

  The Olympic runner-up LeRoy Samse in action

• 

  Olympic third Louis Wilkins, like all medalists from the United States

• 

  The American Ward McLanahan took fourth place

• 

  Ward McLanahan at the pole vault

• 

  Image from the pole vault competition

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

• Sports-Reference, Athletics at the 1904 St. Louis Summer Games: Men's Pole Vault , accessed August 2, 2018
• Olympic Games St. Louis 1904, Athletics, pole vault men , IOC page on athletics at the 1904 Olympic Games at olympic.org, English, accessed August 2, 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. 55