WCH Tokyo 25 facts and figures: men's pole vault

Last three sets of World Athletics Championships medallists

2023: 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.10m, 2 EJ Obiena (PHI) – 6.00m, 3 Kurtis Marschall (AUS) / Chris Nilsen (USA) – 5.95m
2022: 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.21m, 2 Chris Nilsen (USA) – 5.94m, 3 Ernest John Obiena (PHI) – 5.94m
2019: 1 Sam Kendricks (USA) – 5.97m, 2 Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 5.97m, 3 Piotr Lisek (POL) – 5.87m

Last two sets of Olympic medallists

2024: 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.25m, 2 Sam Kendricks (USA) – 5.95m, 3 Emmanouil Karalis (GRE) – 5.90m
2020: 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.02m, 2 Chris Nilsen (USA) – 5.97m, 3 Thiago Braz (BRA) – 5.87m

Highest winning vaults in World Athletics Championships history

Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.21m (2022)
Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.10m (2023)
Dmitri Markov (AUS) – 6.05m (2001)

Lowest winning vault in World Athletics Championships history

Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR) – 5.70m (1983)

Best marks on Japanese soil

6.13m 1 Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR) - Tokyo 19.09.1992
6.07m 1 Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR) - Shizuoka 06.05.1991
6.05m 1 Sergey Bubka (UKR) - Fukuoka 13.09.1997

Best marks on Asian soil

6.24m 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) - Xiamen 20.04.2024
6.15m 1 Armand Duplantis (SWE) - Nanjing (World Indoor Championships) 22.03.2025
6.13m 1 Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR) - Tokyo 19.09.1992

Biggest winning margins

0.27m – 2022: Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.21m, Chris Nilsen (USA) – 5.94m
0.20m – 2001: Dmitri Markov (AUS) – 6.05m, Aleksandr Averbukh (ISR) – 5.85m
0.10m – 2023: Armand Duplantis (SWE) – 6.10m, EJ Obiena (PHI) – 6.00m

​​Smallest winning margins

Best mark by round

Qualification — 5.75m (36 athletes)
Final — 6.21m Armand Duplantis (SWE), 2022

Multiple winners

1983/87/91/93/95/97 - Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR)
2017/19 - Sam Kendricks (USA)
2022/23 - Armand Duplantis (SWE)

Winners by country

3 - Soviet Union
3 - Ukraine
3 - United States
2 - Australia
2 - Sweden
1 - Russia
1 - Italy
1 - Netherlands
1 - Poland
1 - Germany
1 - Canada

Five historic facts

• Sergey Bubka (URS/UKR) was never beaten in World Championships history. He won a record six titles between Helsinki 1983 and Athens 1997
• Bubka achieved the first 6.00m-clearance at the World Championships with a 6.00m winning vault in Stuttgart 1993
• Six of the 19 World Championships finals, including the last two, have been won with 6.00m-plus clearances
• For the first time in World Championships history, two athletes cleared 6.00m or higher in Budapest 2023: Duplantis 6.10m, Ernest John Obiena (PHI) 6.00m
• There have only been seven 6.00m-plus vaults in World Championships history (Duplantis 2, Bubka 2, Markov 1, Tarasov 1, Obiena 1)

​​Potential storylines

• Can Armand Duplantis win his eighth successive global (three indoor, five outdoor) title? He hasn’t been beaten in a major outdoor event since Doha 2019
• Three of the four highest vaulters in history will be competing in Tokyo: 1. Armand Duplantis (SWE) 6.29m, 2. Renaud Lavillenie (FRA) 6.16m, 4. Emmanouil Karalis (GRE) 6.08m
• Lavillenie will be making his eighth World Championships appearance, a record in the event
• Could this be the first World Championships final where all three medallists (or more) clear 6.00m or higher? 
• Could Sergey Bubka’s Japanese all-comers’ record of 6.13m, a world record at the time, get broken?  
• The automatic qualifying height for the final is 5.80m