Gymnastics at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

This was the 24th 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). Three of the eight finalists from 2012 returned: silver medalist Denis Ablyazin of Russia, bronze medalist Igor Radivilov of Ukraine, and fourth-place finisher Tomás González of Chile. Two other 2012 finalists, fifth-place finisher Samuel Mikulak of the United States and eighth-place finisher Kristian Thomas of Great Britain, competed in gymnastics in Rio de Janeiro but did not perform the necessary two vaults in the qualifying round to compete in the vault. Marian Drăgulescu of Romania, the 2004 bronze medalist and 2008 fourth-place finisher, also returned. The favorite was Ri Se-gwang of North Korea, who had won the last two world championships (2014 and 2015).[1]

Lithuania made its debut in the men's vault. The United States made its 21st appearance, most of any nation.

Qualification for the men's artistic gymnastics in 2008 was based primarily on the 2015 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. There were places reserved for 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, Romania qualified Marian Drăgulescu as silver medalist in the vault and Andrei Muntean through the Test Event).

The top 8 qualifiers in the qualification phase (limit two per NOC) advanced to the apparatus final. For the vault, only gymnasts who performed two exercises on the vault were considered for the final; the average score of the two exercises was counted. The finalists again performed two vaults. Qualification scores were then ignored, with only final round scores (average of the two exercises) counting.

All times are Brasília Time (UTC-03:00)