Venue Olympic Stadium Competitors 27 from 21 nations | Date 7–9 August Winning distance 17.81 | |
The Men's triple jump competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. The event was held at the Olympic Stadium on 7–9 August.
Contents
In the qualifying round, Christian Taylor made the automatic qualifier on his first attempt, Leevan Sands made the only other auto qualifier. The two Italian jumpers Daniele Greco and Fabrizio Donato anticipated the outcome and let their first attempt marks qualify them to the finals, taking the rest of the other rounds off. Lyukman Adams and Will Claye took all three attempts to get in a sufficient jump. After controversy, host team favorite, 2009 world champion Phillips Idowu made it to the qualifying round, but could not advance.
In the first round, 35-year-old Fabrizio Donato took the lead over 40 cm ahead of Alexis Copello. In the second round Will Claye took the lead, while Donato improved and his teammate Daniele Greco moved into third. Meanwhile, reigning world champion Christian Taylor was struggling to find the board, taking until his third jump just to get a mark to allow him three more attempts. Donato improved again. In the fourth round Taylor put it all together, jumping 17.81 to take what turned out to be an insurmountable lead. Donato made another improvement for his best attempt 17.48, though any of his four legal jumps would have won the bronze. Then Claye secured another silver medal with a 17.62
Competition format
The competition consisted of two rounds, qualification and final. In qualification, each athlete jumped three times (stopping early if they made the qualifying distance). At least the top twelve athletes moved on to the final; if more than twelve reached the qualifying distance, all who did so advanced. Distances were reset for the final round. Finalists jumped three times, after which the eight best jumped three more times (with the best distance of the six jumps counted).
Schedule
All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)
Records
Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
Qualifying round
Qual. rule: qualification standard 17.10m (Q) or at least best 12 qualified (q).