Vitaly Afanasevich Petrov (Ukrainian: Віталій Опанасович Петров, Russian: Виталий Афанасьевич Петров; born 6 October 1945 in Donetsk, Soviet Union) is a Ukrainian athletics coach, mainly specialising in pole vault.

[1] He was the coach of legendary pole vaulters, like Sergey Bubka, Yelena Isinbayeva and Giuseppe Gibilisco.

He has also coached the Italian Giuseppe Gibilisco (2003-2007 and 2011) and the Russian Yelena Isinbayeva (2005-2010).

[2] He was main coach of the Pole vault Centre in Formia, Italy.

[6] Petrov's innovation in the pole vault was the swing of the vaulter's legs later into the vault, thus retaining more of the energy and depending less on the recoil effect of the bent pole.