Jean Galfione

Jean Galfione

Personal information
Born	(1971-06-09) 9 June 1971 Paris, France
Height	1.84 m
Weight	82 kg
Sport
Country	France
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Pole Vault
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	Pole vault outdoor: 5.98 m (23 July 1999) Pole vault indoor: 6.00 m (6 March 1999)
Medal record Olympic Games Gold 1996 Atlanta Pole vault World Championships Bronze 1995 Gothenburg Pole vault World Indoor Championships Gold 1999 Maebashi Pole vault Bronze 1993 Toronto Pole vault European Championships Bronze 1994 Helsinki Pole vault Bronze 1998 Budapest Pole vault European Indoors Championships Silver 1994 Paris Pole vault
Updated on 2 February 2014.

Jean Galfione (born 9 June 1971 in Paris) is a retired, French pole vaulter.

Pole vaulting career

Before the 1996 Olympic Games

Galfione clinched his first Olympic or World Outdoor/Indoor Championships medal when he won the pole vault bronze medal at the 1993 World Indoor Championships.

Galfione won six successive Championnats de France d'athlétisme (French Athletics Championships) outdoor pole vault titles at the senior level from 1993 to 1998. He also won three Championnats de France d'athlétisme (French Athletics Championships) indoor pole vault titles at the senior level in 1990, 1993 and 1994.

1996 Olympic Games

Galfione achieved the pinnacle of his pole vault career by winning the pole vault gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. In the final of that competition, all the three medallists registered the same greatest height of 5.92m. Whereas Galfione and Igor Trandenkov both cleared 5.92m on their first attempt, Andrei Tivontchik could only clear 5.92m on his second attempt. Galfione had cleared 5.86m (the previous highest height) on his first attempt, whereas Trandenkov had two successive misses at 5.86m and chose to use his third and final attempt to clear 5.92m instead. Since all these three pole vaulters and no one else had succeeded in clearing 5.92m, the podium positions were still undecided. All of them subsequently had three consecutive misses in attempting to clear heights greater than 5.92m, and the contest was therefore declared over. Thus under the tie-breaking rules, Galfione (he had fewer misses in the final than Trandenkov) won the gold medal, with Trandenkov taking the silver and Tivontchik taking the bronze. Galfione's 5.92m winning clearance was a new Olympic record that was 2 cm higher than the previous Olympic record achieved by Sergey Bubka in the 1988 Olympics pole vault final.

After the 1996 Olympic Games

On 6 March 1999, Galfione won the 1999 World Indoor Championships pole vault title, clearing 6.00m (which equalled Sergey Bubka's championship record set in the 1991 final) in the final. He thus became the first Frenchman to clear 6 metres or more indoors or outdoors in the pole vault. That 6.00m mark would remain as the French national indoor pole vault record for 12 years until 5 March 2011, when Renaud Lavillenie broke it with a jump of 6.03m in the 2011 European Indoor Championships pole vault final. Galfione held the French national outdoor pole vault record from 1993 to 2009. On 21 June 2009, Renaud Lavillenie broke Galfione's French national outdoor pole vault record of 5.98m (set in Amiens on 23 July 1999), with a jump of 6.01m.

Galfione retired from pole vaulting in 2005.

Later life

Galfione had been practising sailing competitively since 2007.

Family

On 14 May 2013, Galfione's companion since 2011, Cathy, gave birth to a baby girl, Rose. Rose was Galfione's first child.^[1]

Results in international competitions

See also

• List of pole vaulters who cleared 6 metres or more
• French all-time top lists - Pole vault

References

External links

• Jean Galfione at Sports-Reference
• Jean Galfione profile at IAAF
• Media related to Jean Galfione at Wikimedia Commons