2016 Vaults in Review

The tyranny of the yurchenko full. Since the dawn of life on earth, we have been hearing about the wicked prevalence of yurchenko fulls on vault and how a lineup consisting of six of the same average, snoozer vaults is super boring. Then, in the year 2015, the NCAA coaches did something shocking. They actually decided to get up from their Rip Van Winkle naps and try to change the rules in order to improve the sport. I know. I'm still not over it. They downgraded the yurchenko full and (theoretically) the yurchenko half to a 9.95 start value with the dual aims of increasing variety on vault and encouraging/rewarding those who are able to show more difficulty. With a season of vaults under the new values behind us, let's look into how it actually worked.



A cursory glance at the lineups of the top teams tells us that we did see a greater variety of vaults this season than in recent years, though usually by about one vault per team. Oklahoma is vaulting three yfulls in 2016 compared to four last year. Florida and UCLA both have four yfulls this year instead of five like last year. LSU and Georgia were already showing a number of higher-difficulty vaults last year and stayed constant at those numbers. Utah showed one 1.5 and five fulls again this year, and Auburn's non-full options remain the same. Alabama and Michigan adapted the most among the top tier, each showing three 1.5s (when Casanova was healthy), compared to one most of last year for both teams.

The change has come about pretty much the way we all expected, with a number of top vaulters who have always been fully capable of performing 1.5s upgrading back to vaults they used to perform, like Kennedy Baker, Haley Scaman, Lauren Beers, Mack Brannan, Talia Chiarelli, and Elizabeth Price to the DTY, providing some more variety in their teams' lineups, as much as you can consider a yurchenko 1.5 instead of a yurchenko full "variety."

We've also seen a few 1.5s make it into vault lineups they weren't making previously from the likes of Breanna Hughes and Pua Hall. Hall is an interesting example of someone who prooooobably wouldn't be making that lineup if the 1.5 and the full were the same value because her landing gets a little 9.750, but the extra .05 in SV makes it worthwhile compared to an average full.

It isn't worth it for everyone, however. We know Bridget Sloan can do a 1.5. We all lived through the "BRIDGET SLOAN IS TRAINING AN AMANAR YOU GUYS I SWEAR" years, but she has stayed with the full all season to get a more reliable score and, primarily, to frustrate Kathy Johnson who always thinks she's going to do a 1.5 and is always disappointed. Not every gymnast who can do a 1.5 has been encouraged to do so by the paltry gift of an extra .05. 

Less common, but still occurring, are Hunter Price situations. These are the pot of gold from the change in values. Price's handspring pike 1/2 has been on the cusp of that vault lineup forever but wasn't quite worth it in the lineup. She has used the .05 advantage to push her way into Oklahoma's six and provide a little extra variety. 

I have not yet addressed those vaults-that-shall-not-be-named that masquerade as arabians and get a 10.0 SV, mostly because I'm done talking about them forever. The rule just needs to change for next year, though certainly teams have been getting an extra boost of 10.0 vaults and alleged variety by exploiting that loophole. This is the one area in which the new vault values have been a clear and indisputable negative, adding controversy where there should be none and confusion where there should be clarity. 

Uneven Bars and Vault Champions Showdowns

Courtney Kupets has overcome her second place finish in the floor champions showdown to put on a near-McCullough display of dominance in the beam showdown. Can she keep it up on bars?

I didn't plan these polls out particularly well, so I'm including both bars and vault in the same post because after today will come time to start thinking about preseason rankings and the coaches poll and team previews and all of those delicious morsels.

2013 NCAA Bars Champion – Alaina Johnson (I just wrote Alabama Johnson on the first try. Ugh, me.)


2012 NCAA Bars Champion – Kat Ding (routine begins at 17:30)

2012 Skill Frequency - Floor and Vault

I might as well finish off the bunch with floor and vault frequency.

As always, the tables below show the frequency with which gymnasts performed skills as 2012 Visa Championships, this time on floor and vault as measured by the % of total routines featuring the given skill.

We'll start with the various categories of floor skills, and the pathetically small vault table will follow at the end.

Clearly, the back 1.5 C skill connected into an E tumble dominates the composition. I'm of several minds about this. On the one hand, I don't think any skills besides handsprings and round offs should be appearing in 90% of routines. That's evidence of a code that is too limiting, ensuring there is but one realistic solution to receive the sought-after .2 CV. On the other hand, I love a combination pass. When done well, they are so much more interesting than straightforward tumbles, even difficult ones. So, if that's the kind of combo pass we get, I'm in favor.

That said, I have absolutely no problem with the elimination of the combo pass requirement. The combo pass is so valuable for CV that this has little effect on composition. People will still perform as many misguided combinations to try to get a bigger D score as they did before, but my hope is that perhaps the lack of requirement will cause some to get rid of combinations they were barely getting through in the first place and doing only to fulfill the requirement. The most common combination performed, especially in the seniors, was the 1.5 through to double back, and very few of them were good ideas. Let's get rid of them, McKayla.

While there are some other problems with repetitive composition (every junior dismounted with a 2.5, people perform the double back and the double pike in the same routine) few of the skills appear in more than half of routines, and the problems with repetition seem overall less severe than on bars and beam.

P.S. Why does nobody perform the DLO in elite anymore?

Ranking the Vault 10s

In 2012, we saw five 10s awarded on vault.

There are two types of gymnastics fans: Those who say, "Great for them! They're all winners!" and those who say, "But who is the actual winner?"

I think it's time to pick an actual winner. The videos of the five vaults are provided below. Let's all watch and rank, and we'll come up with a winner among the 10s.

Feel free to move beyond the scoring system and embrace the inherent subjectivity by using any and all criteria you think is appropriate: body shape, landing position, block, amplitude, distance, difficulty, artistic interpretation, hairstyle selection, ability to convey a theme through movement, leotard quality, coach reaction, etc. Use it all.

Geralen Stack Eaton – January 13, 2012