Gymnastics at the 1984 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

The men's vault competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The qualification and final rounds took place on July 29, 31 and August 4 at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. There were 71 competitors from 19 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 Lou Yun of China, in the nation's debut in the Games.

With four silver medalists, the event produced the only four-way tie in the Olympics to date. The silver medals went to Li Ning of China, Koji Gushiken and Shinji Morisue of Japan, and Mitchell Gaylord of the United States. Gaylord's medal was the first for the United States in the vault since 1932.

Background
This was the 16th 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). None of the six finalists from 1980 returned, as all were from boycotting nations. With the absence of the dominant Soviets and strong East Germans, the field was open to the traditional power Japan and rising powers China and the United States. Li Ning and Lou Yun of China had taken second and fourth, respectively, at the 1983 world championships, the highest rankings of the non-boycotting nations.

The People's Republic of China and San Marino each made their debut in the men's vault. The United States made its 14th appearance, breaking a tie with the absent Hungary for most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 vault and the boycotted 1980 Games.

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 1984 Games expanded the number of finalists from six to eight. Nations were still limited to two finalists each. Others were ranked 9th through 71st. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final.

Schedule
All times are Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7)

Results
Seventy-one gymnasts competed in the compulsory and optional rounds on July 29 and 31st. The eight highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on August 4. 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.