How much higher can pole vaulters jump before they get seriously injured?

Related question. How much longer can the poles get before they become too brittle and and break from the stress?

My intuition is that the maximum height has a hard cap based on the pole and the maximum of human performance output. So they will not be able to get much higher than what they already do. The new record set beat the old one by a mere centimetre, and I expect any improvements to be in that range. Miniscule, really.

It’s not how high you jump, but how you land and how soft the padding is.

Good point, It is not the speed that matters but how quickly the pole vaulter decelerates. How much does the padding lengthen the deceleration time?

The records are probably already, fairly maxed out already.
We may be able to get stronger, faster, and more athletic, and get better poles, and that will add something.
But the basic principles, are not going to change.

They could, change the rules, or the way the jumps are done.

When China held the Olympics, they famously (if anyone heard) made a “faster” pool. One designed, to maximize swimmers ability to move as fast as possible.
In addition, newer swimming suits, have technology gleaned from the design of shark skin, and reduce drag that previous athletes could not have.

Perhaps, if they allowed a X-games version of pole vaulting, we will see some real differences.

To be clear, many events, are pretty close to the likely zenith of human physical capabilities.
Anything, that is timed, or measured for distance or accuracy, shouldn’t improve with each series of games.

The athletes, are being developed, at earlier ages, and they are essentially life long world athletes. They receive the absolute best training, recuperating, stretching, diets, etc. that their nation can afford.