Hysong breaks US vault drought

Hysong celebrates his surprise gold medal

Nick Hysong of the USA claimed the men's pole vault gold medal with the performance of his life to give his country their first victory in this event since 1972.

Up until that Olympics the Americans had claimed every single title since 1896 but at the Berlin Olympics they saw the mantle pass to the Europeans.

Hysong, 29, ended that barren run, however, when he cleared 5.90 at the first attempt to beat his previous personal best of 5.85m.

Lawrence Johnson gave the US even more to celebrate, grabbing silver behind his compatriot.

Although both cleared the same height, as did bronze medal winner Maksim Tarasov of Russia and German Michael Stolle, who finished fourth, Hysong had less failures on a countback and so took gold.

Wide open

With six-times world champion Sergei Bubka of the Ukraine failing to qualify, the final was always going to be wide open.

Tarasov, Australian Dimitry Markov, South African Okkert Brits and Germany's Tim Lobinger were the only men in a final field of 12 to have cleared 6.00 metres.

Lobinger, however, was the first to fall by the wayside when he failed at 5.70.

Brits was the next to go when he failed three times at 5.90 while Markov, the former Belarussian who represented Australia for the first time last year, missed 5.90 twice, then upped the bar to 5.96 only to fail again.

Hysong had been vaulting smoothly and flew into uncharted heights with his first attempt at 5.90.

Stolle and Tarasov needed three to get over while Johnson managed it at the second attempt.

All four looked capable of clearing 5.96 but failed, leaving the U.S. to celebrate a double success and a return to the top of an event they used to dominate.