Within the final 13 months Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade has emerged as a breakout star and has been one of the vital profitable athletes in ladies’s creative gymnastics (WAG) in that point. Amongst Rebeca’s many accomplishments have been the 2 gold medals she gained on vault. The primary got here on the 2021 Olympics whereas the second occurred on the World Championships later within the 12 months.
For Andrade, she at the moment holds the 2 main vault titles in WAG concurrently whereas additionally with the ability to name herself a repeat winner on this occasion. However when Rebeca gained her second gold medal on vault she didn’t a lot as enterprise into uncharted territory, however fulfilled a prophecy that nearly at all times appears to return true for latest vault champions. That being, when a gymnast wins her first profession gold medal on vault, she is going to in all probability win a second gold medal on that exact same occasion within the not so distant future.
This pattern is so widespread that it’s a must to go all the best way again to Sandra Izbasa on the 2012 Olympics to search out an instance of a gymnast who completed her profession with solely a single gold medal on vault. Each different gymnast in that timeframe has both gained a number of gold medals on vault, or by no means had the glory of ending in first place.
That is not at all one thing that’s solely a latest phenomenon. Of all of the gold medals ever awarded on vault on the Olympics and World Championships from 1952-present, 62% of them went to gymnasts who gained at the very least two gold medals on that equipment over the course of her profession. However essentially the most jaw-dropping facet of this statistic is that from 1985-present that determine rises to a staggering 74%.
In almost 4 many years of WAG historical past, virtually 3 out of each 4 vault medals have gone to a gymnast who both has completed or will end her profession with a number of vault titles. Cheng Fei, Hong Un-Jong, McKayla Maroney, Maria Paseka, Simone Biles, and Rebeca Andrade are merely the latest examples of pattern that has outlined this equipment.
That 74% determine from 1985-present is such an outlier that on all different particular person occasions (all-around, bars, beam & ground) the determine stands at simply 43% on this similar time interval.
The pattern of “win vault at the very least twice or under no circumstances” first appeared from 1956-1968 when Larissa Latynina and Vera Caslavska mixed to win all however one of many obtainable gold medals on vault on this period. Margarita Nikolaeva profitable the gold medal on vault on the 1960 Olympics was the lone exception.
Then the pattern all however fully disappeared from 1970-1984 with Nellie Kim being the one repeat winner to emerge on this period. However when Elena Shushunova gained back-to-back vault titles on the World Championships in 1985 and 1987* the pattern was right here to remain.
*There was no World Championships in 1986
It’s notably attention-grabbing that the pattern took off beginning in 1985. It was at this precise time limit that Yurchenko-style vaults witnessed an explosion in reputation. It was in 1984 that an 11-year outdated Elena Gurova grew to become the primary gymnast to carry out a Double-Twisting Yurchenko (DTY) vault in a televised competitors. The DTY would go on to turn out to be one of the vital critically necessary expertise on vault and main vaulters would undertake the ability en masse. Even to this present day the ability stays widespread in high-level competitors.
One other attention-grabbing facet of this pattern is readers might recall that previously I wrote that vault is impacted by an uncommon pattern the place dominance on this specific occasion correlates with a gymnast being much less more likely to win gold on the Olympics. Elena Shushunova (1985-1988), Cheng Fei (2005-2008), and McKayla Maroney (2011-2012) are three main examples the place a gymnast experiencing a “sizzling streak” on vault was unable to hold that sizzling streak into Olympic Vault Finals.
Extra gymnasts have gained a number of gold medals on vault than some other equipment. Vault additionally has the very best variety of 2x gold medalists on the World Championships, however this similar occasion is tied with beam for having the bottom variety of 2x gold medalists on the Olympics. Vault has a 5:1 ratio between 2x gold medalists occurring on the World Championships and 2x gold medalists occurring on the Olympics. For comparability the ratio is 1:1 on bars, 2:1 on beam, and 4:3 on ground.
Vault is a wierd equipment with reference to historic developments. On one hand there’s a pattern the place gymnasts are much more more likely to win a number of occasions versus solely profitable as soon as. However, there’s a pattern the place gymnasts who win on vault with an excessive amount of frequency are liable to an Olympic upset. These developments appear virtually contradictory, however there could also be an evidence to this insanity.
In contrast to bars, beam, and ground, the vault is WAG’s solely occasion the place gymnasts don’t compete one single routine. As a substitute gymnasts are tasked with making two distinct makes an attempt on the equipment with a protracted pause in between their makes an attempt. Vault can be the one equipment the place a gymnast performs one ability at a time, and two expertise in complete. This versus the opposite three occasions the place gymnasts are tasked with performing a number of expertise, in a particular order, over the course of a routine starting from 30-seconds to 90-seconds in time.
These variations are the almost certainly perpetrator for vault being liable to not one, however two uncommon developments.
