With a four-second video tweeted Monday evening, Simone Biles managed to revamp curiosity about how much women’s gymnastics can evolve – a conversation Biles regularly has sparked by pushing the limits of what was thought possible.
In the training video, Biles did a vault no female gymnast has ever performed in competition: a Yurchenko double pike. The term “Yurchenko” describes the vault’s entry – named for Natalia Yurchenko, a Soviet world champion who first competed the skill in the early 1980s. This style of vault is typically the most common at all levels, and it will be performed by most gymnasts at the Olympics.
In a Yurchenko, a gymnast does a round-off onto the springboard, then a back handspring onto the vault. Once a gymnast’s hands hit the vaulting table, she pushes off into the air and begins a single flip. That flip is where variety usually begins. Gymnasts typically increase the difficulty of this type of vault by adding twists. U.S. teammate Sunisa Lee does a double twist in competition. Biles and other top vaulters do a Yurchenko with a two-and-a-half twist, known as an Amanar. But here, Biles flips a second time, giving the vault unprecedented difficulty, along with extreme risk. The “pike” refers to the position of her legs during the flips, with hips bent and knees straight.
Biles landed the vault in a foam pit, which offers safety if a gymnast doesn’t have enough height or rotation to finish a skill. But what prompted awe on social media was how she seemingly could have landed it on a competition surface. Fellow Olympians and elite-level gymnasts responded to the tweet in disbelief. The video has been viewed more than two million times. Widely considered the best gymnast of all time, Biles tweeted “2020” along with eyes emojis and a question mark, letting others consider the possibility of seeing this vault in competition. Will Biles actually perform this skill at the Tokyo Olympics or in other events this season? Probably not. But that mere chance, and the potential she showed in the video, will fuel discussions about Biles’ dominance in this sport.
McKayla Maroney, a member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic team in 2012, had similar talent on vault. In a 2016 interview with GymCastic, a popular gymnastics podcast, Maroney said she did a Yurchenko double tuck in training, but at a national team camp, team coordinator Martha Karolyi told Maroney, “Do not ever do that again!” Maroney performed an Amanar as her primary vault in competition. A Yurchenko with a double flip, however, requires “the most intense block,” Maroney said, referencing the moment a gymnast pushes off the vaulting table with her hands. “The thing about double backs that’s really dangerous is it’s like once you’re going for it, you’re going for it,” Maroney said.
Maroney explained if a gymnast feels something is off during a twisting vault, she can decrease the number of twists midair and safely land. But “when you’re [doing a] double back,” she said, “you can’t stop.” That’s the danger in a vault such as the one Biles tweeted Monday, a key reason no woman ever has performed the skill in competition. A Yurchenko with a double flip that doesn’t rotate enough could result in head or neck injuries. But a handful of male gymnasts compete this type of vault safely. Biles’ training video shows she has the necessary height and technique to do the same.
A vault called a Produnova, which is like the forward version of a Yurchenko double tuck, features similar risk. A few gymnasts around the world have competed this skill that involves a forward entry onto the table and then a double front tuck off. The sport’s international governing body devalued this vault, aiming to discourage gymnasts from trying it. In 2016, when asked why she hadn’t attempted the Produnova, Biles told the New Yorker, “I’m not trying to die.”
