Gymnastics at the 1932 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

This was the fifth 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). Four of the gymnasts from 1928 returned: István Pelle and Miklós Péter of Hungary, Mario Lertora of Italy, and Al Jochim of the United States; none had finished better than 21st among the 85-man field that year. The vault was still not an event at the gymnastics world championships, and there was no clear favorite (especially without reigning Olympic champion Eugen Mack not present).[4]

No nation made its debut in the men's vault. The United States made its fourth appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the inaugural 1896 Games.

In the early Olympics, the vault format changed considerably. The 1932 competition bore little resemblance to the 1924 or 1928 events. The 1932 event used a "vaulting horse" aligned parallel to the gymnast's run (rather than the modern "vaulting table" in use since 2004). Each gymnast made two compulsory vaults and two voluntary vaults, with the better of the two counting in each category. The score for each vault was up to 30 points, with a combined score of 60 points maximum. A jump-off, with each gymnast making another compulsory and another voluntary vault, was held to break a tie for third place.[4][3]

For the second (after 1896) and last time, the vault competition was entirely separate from the individual all-around rather than being entirely aggregated into the all-around or sharing qualification results.[4][3]

• Olympic Report
• Wudarski, Pawel (1999). "Wyniki Igrzysk Olimpijskich" (in Polish). Retrieved 1 November 2008.