The soaring standard of world pole vaulting was evident when the qualifying standard was set at 5.75. Four men found vaults of 5.65 insufficient to progress to the final.
Bubka entered at his usual opening height of 5.70. He passed the next three heights, then joined three other men – all ex-Soviets – attempting 5.90. He cleared but so did Yegorov, therefore matching his own Asian record. Tarasov and Trandenkov
went out, tying for the bronze. The bar went up to 6.00 and Bubka brilliantly maintained his perfect record, becoming the first man to vault so high in an outdoor championship. It proved too much for Yegorov, meaning that Bubka had uniquely won a fo
urth world title. The winner then went for a world record of 6.14, but was wrongly timed out after just two minutes on his first attempt. Ten minutes of deliberations between Bubka and the judges followed before the Ukrainian was allowed to go again
. He failed three times but got near on his third attempt.
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