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50 free Pole Vault trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This pole vault trivia quiz covers the event from its bamboo-pole beginnings to Armand Duplantis's centimetre-by-centimetre assault on the world record. The easy questions ask what modern poles are made of, how many attempts a vaulter gets at each height, which Ukrainian dominated the 1980s and 1990s, who was the first woman over five metres and where the reigning men's champion was born. From there it moves through the Olympic story: the first Games with pole vault, the first women's champion in Sydney, the pole ban that cost an American gold in Munich and the Brazilian who beat the world record holder in Rio. The hard end is for track and field obsessives: the 18th-century German teacher who codified the event, the 'Vaulting Vicar' who became the first face on a Wheaties box, the man who cleared 15 feet 43 times when nobody else had done it once, the technique named after Dave Volz that is now illegal, the Dutch canal-jumping cousin of the vault and the $40,000 bonus that made Bubka break records one centimetre at a time. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on the pole vault and on Duplantis, Bubka, Isinbayeva, Lavillenie, Dragila, Warmerdam, Richards, Seagren, Nordwig, Hooker, Suhr, Moon, Kendricks and Braz before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Olympics, track and field and high jump quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Modern pole vault poles are usually made from which materials?
Fiberglass or carbon fiber
Ash and hickory came first, bamboo arrived in 1904, metal after 1945, and glass fiber poles caused a sensation in the early 1960s.
Q 02How many attempts does a vaulter get to clear each height before being eliminated?
Three
A vaulter can pass to the next height after a miss, but three consecutive misses at any heights ends the competition.
Q 03Which Swedish-American vaulter, nicknamed 'Mondo', set a 6.31 m world record in 2026?
Armand Duplantis
By mid-2026 he had broken the world record 15 times, single-handedly lifting it from 6.17 m in 2020 to 6.31 m in 2026.
Q 04Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis was born and raised in which US state?
Louisiana
His American father was a 5.80 m vaulter and his Swedish mother a heptathlete; he competes for Sweden.
Q 05Duplantis's nickname 'Mondo' comes from a word meaning 'world' in which language?
Italian
It was given by his father's best friend, a Sicilian, when Armand was a small child.
Q 06Duplantis set one of his world records, 6.25 m, at which Olympic Games while retaining his title?
Paris 2024
He became only the second man after Bob Richards to win two Olympic pole vault golds.
Q 07Sergey Bubka broke the men's pole vault world record how many times, a record in itself?
35
Seventeen came outdoors and 18 indoors, and his Nike contract paid a $40,000 bonus for each one, so he tended to add a centimetre at a time.
Q 08Sergey Bubka became the first vaulter to clear six metres in 1985 in which city?
Paris
He went on to be the first over 6.10 m as well, and his 6.14 m outdoor mark stood from 1994 to 2020.
Q 09Bubka's outdoor world record of 6.14 m, set in 1994, stood until which year?
2020
Renaud Lavillenie beat his indoor 6.15 m in 2014, but the outdoor mark survived until Duplantis's era.
Q 10Sergey Bubka is a record six-time world champion, but how many Olympic gold medals did he win?
One
His sole Olympic title came in Seoul in 1988; injury, a no-height and boycott politics kept him off the podium at other Games.
Q 11In which Ukrainian city, Bubka's home base, did Lavillenie set his 6.16 m pole vault record in 2014?
Donetsk
He set it at Bubka's own Pole Vault Stars meeting, with Bubka watching from the stands.
Q 12Renaud Lavillenie won Olympic gold in 2012 in which city?
London
He took silver four years later in Rio, and outside athletics has raced the Le Mans 24 Hours for motorcycles.
Q 13Yelena Isinbayeva became the first woman to clear five metres in which year?
2005
Her 5.06 m from Zürich in 2009 remains the women's outdoor world record; it was her 28th world record in all.
Q 21Poles made from which material were introduced to the pole vault in 1904?
Bamboo
Cornelius 'Dutch' Warmerdam used one for his entire career and was still the only man over 15 feet when metal poles arrived after 1945.
Q 22How many times had any vaulter other than 'Dutch' Warmerdam cleared 15 feet by his retirement?
None
He held the world record from 1940 to 1957 and started out vaulting with a peach-tree limb into a dirt pit.
Q 23Why did 15-foot pioneer Dutch Warmerdam never compete at an Olympics?
The Second World War cancelled them
He retired from senior competition in 1944 but kept vaulting into his sixties.
Q 14Which sport did Yelena Isinbayeva train in from age 5 to 15 before switching to pole vault?
Gymnastics
She left it because she grew too tall to be competitive, a background she shares with several other elite vaulters.
Q 15Yelena Isinbayeva was banned from which Olympics after Russia's state-doping revelations?
Rio 2016
She had hoped to retire with a third Olympic gold; instead she retired that August after being elected to the IOC Athletes' Commission.
Q 16Women's pole vault became a full Olympic medal event at which Games?
Sydney 2000
Men have vaulted at every Games since the first in 1896.
Q 17Who won the first women's Olympic pole vault gold medal, in Sydney?
Stacy Dragila
The Californian had come to the event via heptathlon and set her first indoor world record in 1997.
Q 18Modern pole vaulting with measured heights began in the 1790s with a teacher from which country?
Germany
Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths described jumping standards, run-up distance and hand grip, earning him the title father of modern pole vaulting.
Q 19Ancient Egyptians around 2500 BC are depicted using what as poles to mount enemy structures and cross ditches?
Spears
Ancient Greek vases and Irish farmers leaping canals show pole jumping was widespread long before it became a measured sport.
Q 20England's earliest recorded pole vault competition with measured heights took place in 1843 in which county?
Lancashire
It was held at the Ulverston Football and Cricket Club, north of the sands of Morecambe Bay.
Q 24Why was Bob Richards, Olympic champion in 1952 and 1956, nicknamed the 'Vaulting Vicar'?
An ordained minister
He was the first man to win two Olympic pole vault golds, a feat unmatched until Duplantis in 2024.
Q 25In 1958 Bob Richards became the first athlete to appear on the front of which product's packaging?
Wheaties cereal boxes
He became the brand's first spokesman and set up a sports federation encouraging Olympic participation.
Q 26At the 1972 Munich Olympics, champion Bob Seagren lost gold after a late ruling barred what?
A new type of pole
East German Wolfgang Nordwig had never liked the new poles and was unaffected; it was the first time an American had failed to win the Olympic vault.
Q 27Which East German won the 1972 Olympic pole vault title, ending a run of American victories?
Wolfgang Nordwig
He had taken bronze in 1968 when he, Seagren and Schiprowski all cleared 5.40 m and the medals were decided on misses.
Q 28After his vaulting career, Bob Seagren won the first edition of which televised multi-sport contest in 1973?
Superstars
He played Dennis Phillips, boyfriend of Billy Crystal's character Jodie Dallas, in the 1977 sitcom.
Q 29Steve Hooker's 2008 gold made him the first Australian male track and field Olympic champion in how many years?
40
The last had been Ralph Doubell in the 800 m in Mexico City in 1968.
Q 30With what Olympic-record height did Thiago Braz win the 2016 Rio pole vault title?
6.03 m
He skipped 5.98 m, gambling everything on 6.03 m, and cleared it on his second attempt in front of a home crowd.