# Gymnastics at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

The men's vault competition at the 1952 Summer Olympics was held at Töölö Sports Hall (then "Messuhalli"), Exhibition Hall I from 19 to 21 July. It was the eighth appearance of the event. There were 185 competitors from 29 nations, with nations competing in the team event entering up to 8 gymnasts and other nations able to send up to 3. The event was won by Viktor Chukarin of the Soviet Union, the nation's first medal in the event in its first appearance. Japan also earned its first medal(s): a silver and two bronzes, as Masao Takemoto finished second and there was a tie for third between Takashi Ono and Tadao Uesako.

## Background

This was the eighth 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). Seven of the top 13 (including ties for 10th) gymnasts from 1948 returned: gold medalist Paavo Aaltonen of Finland, silver medalist Olavi Rove of Finland, all three bronze medalists (János Mogyorósi-Klencs and Ferenc Pataki of Hungary and Leo Sotorník of Czechoslovakia), and tenth-place finishers Kalevi Laitinen of Finland and Lajos Tóth of Hungary. The reigning (1950) world champion was Ernst Gebendinger of Switzerland.
Belgium, India, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Saar, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and Spain each made their debut in the men's vault. The United States made its seventh appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the inaugural 1896 Games. Of the 22 different nations that had competed at least once in the event before 1952, 20 competed in Helsinki (only Mexico and the Netherlands were missing among the nations having previously competed).

## Competition format

The gymnastics format continued to use the aggregation format. Each nation entered a team of between five and eight gymnasts or up to three individual gymnasts. All entrants in the gymnastics competitions performed both a compulsory exercise and a voluntary exercise for each apparatus. The 2 exercise scores were summed to give a total for the apparatus.
No separate finals were contested.
For each exercise, four judges gave scores from 0 to 10 in one-tenth point increments. The top and bottom scores were discarded and the remaining two scores averaged to give the exercise total. Thus, exercise scores ranged from 0 to 10 and apparatus scores from 0 to 20.
The event used a "vaulting horse" aligned parallel to the gymnast's run (rather than the modern "vaulting table" in use since 2004). Each competitor had two tries for each of the compulsory and voluntary vaults with the better score to count.

## Schedule

All times are Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+3)
| Date | Time | Round |
| Saturday, 19 July 1952 Sunday, 20 July 1952 Monday, 21 July 1952 | 7:30 8:00 8:00 | Final |

## Results

| Rank | Gymnast | Nation | Compulsory | Voluntary | Total |
| | Viktor Chukarin | Soviet Union | 9.45 | 9.75 | 19.20 |
| | Masao Takemoto | Japan | 9.55 | 9.60 | 19.15 |
| | Takashi Ono | Japan | 9.50 | 9.60 | 19.10 |
| | Tadao Uesako | Japan | 9.55 | 9.55 | 19.10 |
| 5 | Hans Eugster | Switzerland | 9.40 | 9.55 | 18.95 |
| 5 | Theo Wied | Germany | 9.45 | 9.50 | 18.95 |
| 7 | Iosif Berdiev | Soviet Union | 9.30 | 9.60 | 18.90 |
| 7 | Ernst Fivian | Switzerland | 9.40 | 9.50 | 18.90 |
| 9 | Adalbert Dickhut | Germany | 9.40 | 9.45 | 18.85 |
| 9 | Wolfgang Girardi | Austria | 9.45 | 9.40 | 18.85 |
| 9 | János Mogyorósi-Klencs | Hungary | 9.40 | 9.45 | 18.85 |
| 9 | Leo Sotorník | Czechoslovakia | 9.35 | 9.50 | 18.85 |
| 13 | Helmut Bantz | Germany | 9.40 | 9.40 | 18.80 |
| 13 | Ferdinand Daniš | Czechoslovakia | 9.35 | 9.45 | 18.80 |
| 13 | Anders Lindh | Sweden | 9.40 | 9.40 | 18.80 |
| 13 | Alfred Schwarzmann | Germany | 9.30 | 9.50 | 18.80 |
| 13 | Josef Stalder | Switzerland | 9.45 | 9.35 | 18.80 |
| 18 | Ahmed Issam Allam | Egypt | 9.35 | 9.40 | 18.75 |
| 19 | Ivan Čaklec | Yugoslavia | 9.55 | 9.15 | 18.70 |
| 19 | Dmytro Leonkin | Soviet Union | 9.20 | 9.50 | 18.70 |
| 19 | Valentin Muratov | Soviet Union | 9.25 | 9.45 | 18.70 |
| 19 | Ferenc Pataki | Hungary | 9.30 | 9.40 | 18.70 |
| 19 | Jean Tschabold | Switzerland | 9.45 | 9.25 | 18.70 |
| 19 | Kalevi Viskari | Finland | 9.45 | 9.25 | 18.70 |
| 25 | Raymond Dot | France | 9.30 | 9.35 | 18.65 |
| 25 | Franjo Jurjević | Yugoslavia | 9.40 | 9.25 | 18.65 |
| 25 | Tetsumi Nabeya | Japan | 9.35 | 9.30 | 18.65 |
| 28 | Onni Lappalainen | Finland | 9.35 | 9.25 | 18.60 |
| 28 | Mahmoud Safwat | Egypt | 9.10 | 9.50 | 18.60 |
| 28 | Melchior Thalmann | Switzerland | 9.30 | 9.30 | 18.60 |
| 31 | Dušan Furlan | Yugoslavia | 9.40 | 9.15 | 18.55 |
| 31 | Mathias Jamtvedt | Norway | 9.25 | 9.30 | 18.55 |
| 31 | Akitomo Kaneko | Japan | 9.25 | 9.30 | 18.55 |
| 31 | Josy Stoffel | Luxembourg | 9.30 | 9.25 | 18.55 |
| 35 | Paavo Aaltonen | Finland | 9.25 | 9.25 | 18.50 |
| 35 | Vladimir Belyakov | Soviet Union | 9.10 | 9.40 | 18.50 |
| 35 | József Fekete | Hungary | 9.20 | 9.30 | 18.50 |
| 35 | Hrant Shahinyan | Soviet Union | 9.05 | 9.45 | 18.50 |
| 35 | Josef Svoboda | Czechoslovakia | 9.15 | 9.35 | 18.50 |
| 40 | René Changeat | France | 9.25 | 9.20 | 18.45 |
| 40 | Charles Simms | United States | 9.30 | 9.15 | 18.45 |
| 40 | Willi Welt | Austria | 9.20 | 9.25 | 18.45 |
| 40 | Ali Zaky | Egypt | 9.45 | 9.00 | 18.45 |
| 44 | Arne Carlsson | Sweden | 9.30 | 9.10 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Paul Grubenthal | Austria | 9.25 | 9.15 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Georg Johansen | Norway | 9.30 | 9.10 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Yevgeny Korolkov | Soviet Union | 8.90 | 9.50 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Kalevi Laitinen | Finland | 9.20 | 9.20 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Kaino Lempinen | Finland | 9.20 | 9.20 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Friedel Overwien | Germany | 9.10 | 9.30 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Littorio Sampieri | Italy | 9.15 | 9.25 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Hans Schwarzentruber | Switzerland | 9.25 | 9.15 | 18.40 |
| 44 | Volmer Thomsen | Denmark | 9.30 | 9.10 | 18.40 |
| 54 | Walter Blattmann | United States | 9.25 | 9.10 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Marcel Coppin | Luxembourg | 9.10 | 9.25 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Ernst Gebendinger | Switzerland | 9.40 | 8.95 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Poul Jessen | Denmark | 9.30 | 9.05 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Odd Lie | Norway | 9.25 | 9.10 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Michel Mathiot | France | 9.05 | 9.30 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Hans Sauter | Austria | 9.20 | 9.15 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Ed Scrobe | United States | 9.35 | 9.00 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Josef Škvor | Czechoslovakia | 9.20 | 9.15 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Mincho Todorov | Bulgaria | 9.15 | 9.20 | 18.35 |
| 54 | Erich Wied | Germany | 8.95 | 9.40 | 18.35 |
| 65 | Jack Günthard | Switzerland | 9.15 | 9.15 | 18.30 |
| 65 | Alf Nørgaard | Norway | 9.20 | 9.10 | 18.30 |
| 65 | Mikhail Perelman | Soviet Union | 9.05 | 9.25 | 18.30 |
| 65 | Lajos Tóth | Hungary | 9.05 | 9.25 | 18.30 |
| 65 | Luigi Zanetti | Italy | 9.15 | 9.15 | 18.30 |
| 70 | Hans Friedrich | Austria | 9.25 | 9.00 | 18.25 |
| 70 | Orlando Polmonari | Italy | 9.05 | 9.20 | 18.25 |
| 70 | Frank Turner | Great Britain | 9.20 | 9.05 | 18.25 |
| 73 | Joaquín Blume | Spain | 9.30 | 8.90 | 18.20 |
| 73 | Paweł Gaca | Poland | 8.95 | 9.25 | 18.20 |
| 73 | Vladimír Kejř | Czechoslovakia | 9.00 | 9.20 | 18.20 |
| 73 | Sándor Réthy | Hungary | 9.10 | 9.10 | 18.20 |
| 73 | Bob Stout | United States | 8.80 | 9.40 | 18.20 |
| 73 | Kurt Wigartz | Sweden | 9.20 | 9.00 | 18.20 |
| 79 | Hubert Erang | Luxembourg | 8.90 | 9.25 | 18.15 |
| 79 | Alf Olsen | Norway | 9.25 | 8.90 | 18.15 |
| 79 | Lajos Sántha | Hungary | 8.95 | 9.20 | 18.15 |
| 79 | Jack Wells | South Africa | 9.10 | 9.05 | 18.15 |
| 83 | Ferenc Kemény | Hungary | 9.20 | 8.90 | 18.10 |
| 83 | Arne Knudsen | Norway | 9.10 | 9.00 | 18.10 |
| 83 | Hans Pfann | Germany | 9.00 | 9.10 | 18.10 |
| 83 | Dimitar Yordanov | Bulgaria | 9.05 | 9.05 | 18.10 |
| 87 | Jack Beckner | United States | 9.25 | 8.80 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Magdy Gheriani | Egypt | 8.95 | 9.10 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Károly Kocsis | Hungary | 9.10 | 8.95 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Miloš Kolejka | Czechoslovakia | 8.85 | 9.20 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Jindřich Mikulec | Czechoslovakia | 9.10 | 8.95 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Zdeněk Růžička | Czechoslovakia | 9.05 | 9.00 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Börje Stattin | Sweden | 9.25 | 8.80 | 18.05 |
| 87 | Todor Todorov | Bulgaria | 9.05 | 9.00 | 18.05 |
| 95 | Don Holder | United States | 9.20 | 8.80 | 18.00 |
| 95 | Bjarne Jørgensen | Denmark | 9.05 | 8.95 | 18.00 |
| 95 | Berndt Lindfors | Finland | 9.00 | 9.00 | 18.00 |
| 98 | Ronnie Lombard | South Africa | 9.05 | 8.90 | 17.95 |
| 98 | Gunnar Pedersen | Denmark | 9.10 | 8.85 | 17.95 |
| 100 | Nikolay Atanasov | Bulgaria | 8.85 | 9.05 | 17.90 |
| 100 | Nils Sjöberg | Sweden | 9.10 | 8.80 | 17.90 |
| 102 | Vasil Konstantinov | Bulgaria | 9.00 | 8.85 | 17.85 |
| 102 | Heikki Savolainen | Finland | 8.75 | 9.10 | 17.85 |
| 104 | Arrigo Carnoli | Italy | 8.80 | 9.00 | 17.80 |
| 104 | William Thoresson | Sweden | 9.10 | 8.70 | 17.80 |
| 104 | André Weingand | France | 8.95 | 8.85 | 17.80 |
| 107 | Friedrich Fetz | Austria | 9.10 | 8.60 | 17.70 |
| 107 | Jey Kugeler | Luxembourg | 8.60 | 9.10 | 17.70 |
| 107 | Jack Whitford | Great Britain | 9.05 | 8.65 | 17.70 |
| 110 | Frederik De Waele | Belgium | 8.85 | 8.80 | 17.65 |
| 110 | Manuel Gouveia | Portugal | 9.00 | 8.65 | 17.65 |
| 110 | Heinz Ostheimer | Saar | 8.80 | 8.85 | 17.65 |
| 110 | Olavi Rove | Finland | 8.15 | 9.50 | 17.65 |
| 114 | Andrei Kerekes | Romania | 8.45 | 9.15 | 17.60 |
| 114 | Børge Nielsen | Denmark | 8.70 | 8.90 | 17.60 |
| 114 | Bill Roetzheim | United States | 8.85 | 8.75 | 17.60 |
| 114 | Ernst Wister | Austria | 9.10 | 8.50 | 17.60 |
| 118 | Aurel Losnita | Romania | 8.45 | 9.10 | 17.55 |
| 118 | Jeroom Riske | Belgium | 8.60 | 8.95 | 17.55 |
| 120 | Carol Bedö | Romania | 8.55 | 8.95 | 17.50 |
| 120 | Ahmed Khalil El-Giddawi | Egypt | 8.55 | 8.95 | 17.50 |
| 120 | Ivica Jelić | Yugoslavia | 8.40 | 9.10 | 17.50 |
| 123 | Franz Kemter | Austria | 8.90 | 8.50 | 17.40 |
| 123 | Magne Kleiven | Norway | 8.70 | 8.70 | 17.40 |
| 123 | Frederic Orendi | Romania | 8.40 | 9.00 | 17.40 |
| 123 | Fred Wiedersporn | Saar | 8.65 | 8.75 | 17.40 |
| 123 | Ragai Youssef | Egypt | 8.75 | 8.65 | 17.40 |
| 128 | Ángel Aguiar | Cuba | 8.75 | 8.60 | 17.35 |
| 128 | Fabio Bonacina | Italy | 8.35 | 9.00 | 17.35 |
| 128 | Francisc Cocis | Romania | 8.50 | 8.85 | 17.35 |
| 128 | Ryszard Kucjas | Poland | 8.35 | 9.00 | 17.35 |
| 128 | Zdzisław Lesiński | Poland | 9.10 | 8.25 | 17.35 |
| 128 | Walter Müller | Saar | 8.60 | 8.75 | 17.35 |
| 128 | George Weedon | Great Britain | 8.35 | 9.00 | 17.35 |
| 135 | Juan Caviglia | Argentina | 8.40 | 8.85 | 17.25 |
| 135 | Marcel de Wolf | France | 8.40 | 8.85 | 17.25 |
| 137 | Georges Floquet | France | 8.25 | 8.95 | 17.20 |
| 137 | Ede Mađar | Yugoslavia | 8.20 | 9.00 | 17.20 |
| 137 | Quinto Vadi | Italy | 8.30 | 8.90 | 17.20 |
| 140 | Szymon Sobala | Poland | 9.15 | 8.00 | 17.15 |
| 141 | Guido Figone | Italy | 8.70 | 8.25 | 16.95 |
| 142 | Ken Buffin | Great Britain | 9.00 | 7.90 | 16.90 |
| 142 | Jean Guillou | France | 8.90 | 8.00 | 16.90 |
| 142 | Ernst Madland | Norway | 8.65 | 8.25 | 16.90 |
| 142 | Manuel Prazeres | Portugal | 8.40 | 8.50 | 16.90 |
| 146 | Armand Huberty | Luxembourg | 8.35 | 8.50 | 16.85 |
| 146 | Børge Minerth | Denmark | 9.10 | 7.75 | 16.85 |
| 146 | Peter Starling | Great Britain | 8.35 | 8.50 | 16.85 |
| 149 | Freddy Jensen | Denmark | 7.80 | 9.00 | 16.80 |
| 150 | Rafael Lecuona | Cuba | 8.00 | 8.75 | 16.75 |
| 151 | Nikolay Milev | Bulgaria | 7.65 | 9.05 | 16.70 |
| 151 | Sreten Stefanović | Yugoslavia | 9.20 | 7.50 | 16.70 |
| 153 | Zoltan Balogh | Romania | 7.55 | 9.10 | 16.65 |
| 153 | Graham Harcourt | Great Britain | 8.55 | 8.10 | 16.65 |
| 153 | Jerzy Jokiel | Poland | 9.15 | 7.50 | 16.65 |
| 156 | Mohamed Sayed Hamdi | Egypt | 7.75 | 8.70 | 16.45 |
| 156 | René Schroeder | Luxembourg | 7.70 | 8.75 | 16.45 |
| 158 | Raymond Badin | France | 7.55 | 8.85 | 16.40 |
| 159 | Mahmoud Mohamed Reda | Egypt | 7.50 | 8.80 | 16.30 |
| 160 | Vincent D'Autorio | United States | 7.10 | 9.15 | 16.25 |
| 161 | Rolf Lauer | Saar | 8.15 | 8.05 | 16.20 |
| 162 | Karel Janež | Yugoslavia | 7.10 | 8.95 | 16.05 |
| 162 | Jerzy Solarz | Poland | 8.80 | 7.25 | 16.05 |
| 164 | Paweł Świętek | Poland | 8.45 | 7.50 | 15.95 |
| 165 | Silvio Brivio | Italy | 8.50 | 7.35 | 15.85 |
| 166 | Iliya Topalov | Bulgaria | 6.60 | 9.05 | 15.65 |
| 167 | Mihai Botez | Romania | 6.50 | 9.00 | 15.50 |
| 168 | César Bonoris | Argentina | 8.95 | 6.50 | 15.45 |
| 169 | Erich Peters | Sweden | 6.65 | 8.75 | 15.40 |
| 170 | Francisco Cascante | Cuba | 6.65 | 8.35 | 15.00 |
| 171 | Eugen Balint | Romania | 6.00 | 8.95 | 14.95 |
| 172 | Raúl Caldeira | Portugal | 6.50 | 8.05 | 14.55 |
| 173 | Arthur Schmitt | Saar | 5.65 | 8.85 | 14.50 |
| 174 | Rolf Yelseth | South Africa | 7.05 | 7.35 | 14.40 |
| 175 | Vir Singh | India | 6.50 | 7.50 | 14.00 |
| 176 | Norbert Dietrich | Saar | 6.90 | 7.00 | 13.90 |
| 177 | Paweł Gawron | Poland | 8.00 | 5.50 | 13.50 |
| 178 | Joaquim Granger | Portugal | 6.25 | 7.00 | 13.25 |
| 179 | Maurice De Groote | Belgium | 4.75 | 7.25 | 12.00 |
| 180 | António Leite | Portugal | 5.25 | 6.00 | 11.25 |
| 181 | Stoyan Stoyanov | Bulgaria | 9.20 | — | 9.20 |
| 182 | Jakob Kiefer | Germany | 9.00 | — | 9.00 |
| 183 | Antun Kropivšek | Yugoslavia | 8.40 | — | 8.40 |
| 184 | Manuel Cardoso | Portugal | 0.00 | 5.65 | 5.65 |
| 185 | Khushi Ram | India | 0.00 | 5.50 | 5.50 |