| Triple jump at the Olympic Games | |
|---|---|
 Willie Banks in the 1988 Olympic triple jump competition | |
| Overview | |
| Sport | Athletics |
| Gender | Men and women |
| Years held | Men: 1896 – 2020 Women: 1996 – 2020 |
| Olympic record | |
| Men | 18.09 m Kenny Harrison (1996) |
| Women | 15.67 m Yulimar Rojas (2021) |
| Reigning champion | |
| Men |  Jordan Díaz (ESP) |
| Women |  Thea LaFond (DMA) |
The triple jump at the Summer Olympics is grouped among the four track and field jumping events held at the multi-sport event. The men's triple jump has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since the first Summer Olympics in 1896. The women's triple jump is one of the more recent additions to the programme, having been first contested in 1996. It became the third Olympic jumping event for women after the high jump and long jump.
The Olympic records for the event are 18.09 m (59 ft 4 in) for men, set by Kenny Harrison in 1996, and 15.67 m (51 ft 4+3⁄4 in) for women, set by Yulimar Rojas in 2021. The men's triple jump world record was broken at the competition in 1924, 1932, 1936, 1956 and 1968. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, three men improved the record a total of five times at the high altitude of Mexico City.[1] The women's world record was broken at the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
James Brendan Connolly was the first Olympic triple jump champion and, as it was the first event to conclude in 1896, he was also the first Olympic champion of the modern era.[2] Inessa Kravets, the world record holder, became the first women's champion 100 years later at the Atlanta Games. Portuguese Pedro Pichardo and Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas are the reigning Olympic champions from 2020.
Viktor Saneyev is the event's most successful athlete as he was Olympic champion three times consecutively from 1968 to 1976, as well as runner-up in 1980. Françoise Mbango Etone is the only woman to win two Olympic triple jump titles. Saneyev, Vilho Tuulos and Olga Rypakova are the only three athletes to have won more than two Olympic medals in the event. The United States is the most successful nation in the event, with eight gold medals. The Soviet Union is the next most successful, with four golds.
A short-lived standing triple jump variant of the event was contested in 1900 and 1904 and standing jumps specialist Ray Ewry won both gold medals.
- ^ Athletics at the 1968 Ciudad de México Summer Games: Men's Triple Jump. Sports Reference. Retrieved on 2014-05-11.
- ^ James B. Connolly. Sports Reference. Retrieved on 2014-05-11.