History of Pole Vaulting

Pole vault is a full medal track and field event at Olympic Games, requiring a competitor to leap over a bar using a long flexible pole made either of carbon fiber or fiberglass. It is one of the four major jumping events in athletics, the other three are high jump, long jump and triple jump. The pole vault has a lot of similarities to high jump.

Pole vaulting, originally for distance, dates back to at least the 16th century and there is also evidence it was even practised in Ancient Greece. The origins of modern vaulting can be traced back to Germany in the 1850s, when the sport was adopted by a gymnastic association, and in the Lake District region of England, where contests were held with ash or hickory poles with iron spikes in the end.

The first recorded use of bamboo poles was in 1857. The top vaulters started using steel poles in the 1940s and flexible fibreglass, and later carbon fibre, poles started to be widely used in the late 1950s. https://www.sportstototv.com