Simone Biles's five signature gymnastics skills, broken down

August 11, 2024

This vault features a round-off onto the springboard and a back handspring onto the vault. Biles then performs two flips in a pike position, meaning her legs are straight and she folds her body at her hips.

This skill is also known as a Yurchenko double pike. The term “Yurchenko” refers to the entry onto the vault and is named for Natalia Yurchenko, a world champion for the Soviet Union; it’s the most common type of vault at the elite level. Biles became the first woman to perform a Yurchenko-style vault with two flips in the air.

All other female elite gymnasts have performed Yurchenko vaults with just one flip. They opt to add twists to increase difficulty. (Some gymnasts, including Biles, have mastered 2½-twisting Yurchenkos, but the triple-twisting Yurchenko has yet to be successfully performed in women’s gymnastics.) The second flip in the Yurchenko double pike makes it extraordinarily difficult.

“The double pike, it’s never been normal, and it never will be,” said Joscelyn Roberson, an alternate for the U.S. Olympic team who trains alongside Biles.

Biles stunned the gymnastics community when she posted a video of herself practicing this skill in February 2020; before then, a double-flipping Yurchenko was not perceived to be a realistic element in women’s gymnastics. Biles has said she initially practiced this skill as a way to work on her push off the table to improve her other Yurchenko-style vault.

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Eventually, Biles realized she could safely perform the Yurchenko double pike in a competition, and she unveiled the vault at the U.S. Classic in May 2021. She didn’t perform the skill again that season, including at the Olympics, where she withdrew from multiple events, including the vault final. But Biles did the Yurchenko double pike at about half of her competitions in 2023, and at the world championships, the skill officially became known as the Biles II.

“People, I hope, realize that maybe that’s one of the last times you’re going to see a vault like that in your life from a women’s gymnast,” Coach Laurent Landi said after Biles performed this vault at the world championships last year. “I think it’s time to appreciate that.”

Biles has performed the Yurchenko double pike at every competition in 2024, and it could propel her to a gold medal in Paris. This vault has a difficulty value of 6.4, which is higher than every other vault in women’s gymnastics.

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