Gymnastics at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

The men's vault competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The qualification and final rounds took place on July 20, 22 and 25th at the Luzhniki Palace of Sports. There were 65 competitors from 14 nations, with nations competing in the team event having 6 gymnasts while other nations could have to up to 3 gymnasts. The event was won by Nikolai Andrianov of the Soviet Union, the first man to successfully defend an Olympic title in the vault. Andrianov was also the first (and, as of the 2016 Games, only) man to win a third medal in the event, with a bronze in 1972 along with his 1976 and 1980 gold medals. For the eighth consecutive Games, the Soviets had a gymnast in the top two in vault; this time, they had both the top two, as Alexander Dityatin took silver. Roland Brückner of East Germany earned bronze.

Background
This was the 15th 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). Three of the six finalists from 1976 returned: gold medalist Nikolai Andrianov of the Soviet Union, fourth-place finisher Dan Grecu of Romania, and fifth-place finisher Zoltán Magyar of Hungary. Andrianov had finished second to fellow Soviet Alexander Dityatin in the 1979 world championships. The American-led boycott resulted in there being no competitors from either the traditional men's gymnastics power of Japan or the rising power of the United States; the Soviets' dominance this Games would be challenged only by the East Germans.

Brazil made its debut in the men's vault. Hungary made its 13th appearance, tying the United States (absent from the vault event for the first time since the inaugural 1896 Games) for most of any nation.

Competition format
The event used a "vaulting horse" aligned parallel to the gymnast's run (rather than the modern "vaulting table" in use since 2004). Each nation entered a team of six gymnasts or up to three individual gymnasts. All entrants in the gymnastics competitions performed both a compulsory exercise and a voluntary exercise for each apparatus. The scores for all 12 exercises were summed to give an individual all-around score. These exercise scores were also used for qualification for the apparatus finals. The two exercises (compulsory and voluntary) for each apparatus were summed to give an apparatus score. The top 6 in each apparatus participated in the finals, except that nations were limited to two finalists each; others were ranked 7th through 65th. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final.

Schedule
All times are Moscow Time (UTC+3)

Results
Sixty-five gymnasts competed in the compulsory and optional rounds on July 20 and 22. The six highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on July 25. Each country was limited to two competitors in the final. Half of the points earned by each gymnast during both the compulsory and optional rounds carried over to the final. This constitutes the "prelim" score.