The Vault in Gymnastics
I have been obsessing about US Women's Gymnastics lately. I really started following when the Nassar news broke, mostly because I could not believe a person like that could be allowed to do what he did for so long?! Just because he knew the right people?! The FBI report about the whole investigation recently came out, and it made me even angrier, but that's not really the point of this post.
There have been so many stories of triumph to come from the US Gymnastics team this year. These women seem to be changing the sport for the better, and they make me want to keep up with what's going on. Biles coming back to do the Beam, Skinner medaling when she expected to fly back home without competing at all, Chiles' comeback, Suni's win!!
Which brings me to my favorite event - THE VAULT. Absolutely insane, the feats these gymnasts can accomplish. And this event is one of only two that both men and women do (although the floor exercise technique is arguably very different between the genders), which is part of the reason it appeals to me. There's a direct comparison to be made, and women can do the same types of aerial moves. In fact, Biles famously does harder vaults than the men. I mean, look at Maroney doing the exact same vault as the male gold medalist in 2012:
This is mind blowing to me!!!
The vaulters used to do all this by vaulting over a tiny horse, too. The vaulting table was implemented in 2003, after the total clusterfuck that was the vaulting horse in 2000 in Sydney when they didn't set it up at the right height (WTF?). Anyway, this event is super dangerous and there are horror stories about gymnasts who broke their necks by ramming into the vaulting table.
This article talks about the physics of the vault. I learned that the Yurchenko family of vaults allow a gymnast to increase their downward momentum by doing a round-off onto the springboard, so they have more upward momentum when they come off of it. The Yurchenko vault also means they have more angular momentum coming off the vaulting table. After that, they just have to control their speed to be able to keep flipping before gravity pulls them down. But they have to basically trust that the vault is there, because they can't see it. INSANE. Hence why two types of Yurchenko vaults are on the list for hardest gymnastics moves. The namesake of the skill has a website where she talks about learning it.
Aaaaand now I need to read an Olympics AU. Except I'm not really sure if any of fandoms would fit into one? Maybe a sports fandom like The English Game.
There have been so many stories of triumph to come from the US Gymnastics team this year. These women seem to be changing the sport for the better, and they make me want to keep up with what's going on. Biles coming back to do the Beam, Skinner medaling when she expected to fly back home without competing at all, Chiles' comeback, Suni's win!!
Which brings me to my favorite event - THE VAULT. Absolutely insane, the feats these gymnasts can accomplish. And this event is one of only two that both men and women do (although the floor exercise technique is arguably very different between the genders), which is part of the reason it appeals to me. There's a direct comparison to be made, and women can do the same types of aerial moves. In fact, Biles famously does harder vaults than the men. I mean, look at Maroney doing the exact same vault as the male gold medalist in 2012:
Click to viewThis is mind blowing to me!!!
The vaulters used to do all this by vaulting over a tiny horse, too. The vaulting table was implemented in 2003, after the total clusterfuck that was the vaulting horse in 2000 in Sydney when they didn't set it up at the right height (WTF?). Anyway, this event is super dangerous and there are horror stories about gymnasts who broke their necks by ramming into the vaulting table.
This article talks about the physics of the vault. I learned that the Yurchenko family of vaults allow a gymnast to increase their downward momentum by doing a round-off onto the springboard, so they have more upward momentum when they come off of it. The Yurchenko vault also means they have more angular momentum coming off the vaulting table. After that, they just have to control their speed to be able to keep flipping before gravity pulls them down. But they have to basically trust that the vault is there, because they can't see it. INSANE. Hence why two types of Yurchenko vaults are on the list for hardest gymnastics moves. The namesake of the skill has a website where she talks about learning it.
Aaaaand now I need to read an Olympics AU. Except I'm not really sure if any of fandoms would fit into one? Maybe a sports fandom like The English Game.