Gymnast Simone Biles became the first woman to perform a Yurchenko Double Pike. But do you know what is it?
By Neelajit Sarkar
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One of the greatest gymnasts of all time, Simone Biles made headlines a couple of days back.
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She became the first woman in history of Gymnastics to successfully land the Yurchenko Double Pike move and to clinch gold medal.
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Now, What exactly is Yurchenko Double Pike?
Yurchenko Double Pike is one of the tougher moves in artistic gymnastics. For better understanding, let us break it into parts.
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Yurchenko
Yurchenko is the name of a vault family as well as a specific vault used in Artistic Gymnastics, The vault is named after former Soviet Union gymnast Natalia Yurchenko.
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In this Vault, the gymnast does a round-off on to the springboard and a back handspring on to the vaulting table
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He or she then performs one or more somersault depending on how much difficulty level they want to attempt.
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Pike
It is a type of structure a gymnast's body is in while he or she performs a flip.
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The form is categorised into four forms when they perform's a flip – Aerial, Layout, Tuck and Pike.
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Yurchenko Double Pike
In the Yurchenko Double Pike a gymnast does a round-off on to the springboard and back handspring on the Yurchenko vault and then performs two flips with the body in the form of a pike.