Gymnastics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

This was the 23rd appearance of the event, which is one of the five apparatus events held every time there were apparatus events at the Summer Olympics (no apparatus events were held in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920). Two of the eight finalists from 2008 returned: seventh-place finisher Flavius Koczi of Romania and eighth-place finisher Isaac Botella of Spain. Yang Hak-Seon of South Korea was the reigning (2011) world champion. He was the favorite, particularly with 2010 world champion Thomas Bouhail of France injured and unable to compete.[2]

Chile and Hong Kong each made their debut in the men's vault. The United States made its 20th appearance, most of any nation.

Qualification for the men's artistic gymnastics in 2008 was based primarily on the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The top 8 teams at the world championships could send a full team of 5 gymnasts to the Olympics. The next 8 teams (#9 through #16) competed in the 2012 Gymnastics Olympic Test Event, with the top 4 of those teams also qualifying a team of 5 gymnasts for the Olympics. The individual apparatus medalists from the World Championships also qualified, if their nation had not already qualified a team. The FIG Executive Board made invitational selections to ensure host country and continental representation and the Tripartite Commission made an invitation. The quota of 98 gymnasts was then filled through the individual all-around rankings at the Test Event, with each nation able to qualify only one gymnast in that manner (though this one gymnast could be added to the world championship apparatus medalists—for example, Brazil qualified Diego Hypólito as bronze medalist in the floor, Arthur Nabarrete Zanetti as silver medalist in the rings, and Sérgio Sasaki through the Test Event).

The top eight qualifiers in the qualification phase (limit two per NOC) advanced to the apparatus final. Only those gymnasts who performed two vault exercises were considered for advancement to the vault final; the average score of the two exercises was used. Qualification scores were then ignored, with only final round scores counting. Each gymnast performed two vaults, with average score counted.[3]

Scoring in artistic gymnastics is based on two separate scores that are then combined in order to come to the final score. The D score measures the difficulty of each element (and combinations of elements) within the routine, while the E score evaluates the performance, ie, the "execution, composition and artistry" of the routine. For further information, please see the Code of Points article.

North Greenwich Arena

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)