Christopher Nilsen, popularly known as Chris Nilsen, is a pole vault and high jump specialist from the United States. He is an Olympic silver medallist, having earned the medal in the pole vault event at the Summer Olympics 2020 with a jump of 5.97 m. He also won the silver medal at the 2022 World Championships and the bronze at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. Nilsen is a three-time NCAA Track and Field Pole vault champion and a six-time NCAA Division I First Team All-American. He also owns the South Dakota Coyotes' indoor and outdoor pole vault school records of 5.80 m and 5.86 m, respectively.
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Nilsen established two U-20 American and NACAC pole vault records: 5.75 m for the outdoor event and 5.70 m for the indoor event. He won both the 2017 Summit League Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year and Indoor Field Athlete of the Year awards. He was named to The Bowerman Watch List for the whole 2017 outdoor season. Nilsen won the 2018 Texas Relays by clearing 5.80 meters. He then competed against Sam Kendricks at the 2018 Drake Relays and jumped 5.78 meters. Nilsen came in second at the 2019 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships and established an NCAA Men’s Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships meet record in the pole vault.
For the ninth time in 2019, Nilsen received the Summit League student-athlete of the week award. After winning his third straight league pole vault gold with a meet record leap of 5.81 m, Chris was named the men’s most outstanding performer at the competition. Nilsen set a new indoor record of 5.93 meters in February 2020 at the Devaney Sports Complex. This jump broke Mondo Duplantis’s indoor NCAA Collegiate record, which remained until February 2021, when KC Lightfoot cleared 6.00 meters.
In the fall of 2016, Nilsen started performing for the South Dakota Coyotes and in Vermillion, South Dakota under coach Derek Miles. Nilsen placed thirteenth in the pole vault at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics in London after clearing 5.60 m. He then cleared 5.76 m to win the pole vault gold medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. In July 2020, Nilsen made his professional debut as a sportsperson sponsored by Nike. Nilsen was the only pole vaulter to cross 5.90 m on June 21, 2021, securing first place and a place on the Olympic team alongside Sam Kendricks and KC Lightfoot.
He improved his personal best by two centimeters and captured his first Olympics medal in the form of silver at the Tokyo Olympics with a leap of 5.97 meters. At the Golden Pole Vault Special Meeting in Tourcoing, France, on February 5, 2022, Nilsen set a new indoor North American Record by jumping 6.02 meters. He went on to win the bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade 2022, coming in third place behind the current world record holder Armand Duplantis and Thiago Braz. After losing to Mondo Duplantis, he went on to win the silver medal at the 2022 World Championships in Oregon with a best effort of 5.94 meters.
| Event | Total | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| Olympic Games | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| World Championships | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| World Indoor Championships | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Pan American Games | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
There is no information available regarding Chris’ present coach. However, he is presently working with his agent Karen Locke. Derek Miles coached him when he started competing South Dakota Coyote in the fall of 2016. Derek Miles is a former American pole vaulter from Tea, South Dakota, and is now an assistant coach for the Coyotes. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, he finished seventh. Miles won the bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China when Ukraine’s third-place finisher Denys Yurchenko was banned for using dehydrochlormethyltestosterone in November 2016.
| Competition | Best Result | Event | Mark | Position |
| Olympic Games | Tokyo 2020 | Pole Vault | 5.97 m | Silver |
| World Championships | Eugene, Oregon 2022 | Pole Vault | 5.94 m | Silver |
| World Indoor Championships | Belgrade 2022 | Pole Vault | 5.90 m | Bronze |
| Pan American Games | Lima 2019 | Pole Vault | 5.76 m | Gold |
Chris was born on January 13, 1998, to Mark and Karen Nilsen. He was brought up in his native Kansas City, Missouri. Nilsen received his high school education from Park Hill High School in Kansas City, Missouri. With a clearance of 5.61 m at the Missouri Class 5 sectional meet, he broke the high school pole vault record for the United States. He married Kelly Vogel in 2019, and the couple had a son named Roman. However, it is reported that Chris was engaged in a personal dispute with his wife and they have parted ways. Breanna Swee is the woman Chris is seeing now. On October 25, 2022, the pole vaulter proposed to her girlfriend. The couple is rumored to be getting married soon.
Chris Nilsen in action (Image Credits - Instagram/ @nilsenvault) Chris Nilsen in action (Image Credits - Instagram/ @nilsenvault)
Chris Nilsen in a file photo (Image Credits - Instagram/ @nilsenvault)
Chris Nilsen in action (Image Credits - World Athletics)
Chris Nilsen at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 (Image Credits - World Athletics)
