Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Devolution of the Double Twisting Yurchenko

The first DTY was competed at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, by Svetlana Baitova from the Soviet Union, earning its name in the code of points as the Baitova.  It was not the prettiest vault, and she never really got it all the way around, but none-the-less, it was difficult and innovative.  At the time, many gymnasts were doing layouts, fulls, some 1 1/2, and Baitova came and blew them away with difficulty.  She was never fully rewarded for it, this was a time of execution over difficulty, and never made it to an event final.  Little did she know at the time, however, she was paving the future of vaulting.

There were a couple DTYs scattered around, including Tatiana Lysenko's beautiful stuck DTY in 1992, when she did a full twist extra then her competitors, and did it amazingly.

Many people began doing it in 2003-2004, when it was marked as a 9.8, as opposed to the 1 1/2 twisting Yurchenko, which was only a 9.7, a tenth was a HUGE difference at the time.  Many people began favoring this vault, due to the higher difficulty and the fact that you could spot the landing, as opposed to the 1 1/2 Yurchenko, which was a blind landing.

Aside from Nastia Liukin, it became very important to have this vault under your belt.  In fact, if Chellsie Memmel hadn't vaulted a DTY, Nastia Liukin would've had a higher score, and been the 2005 AA World Champion.  Everybody was vaulting a DTY, except Nastia, who was vaulting a kick-butt 11/2, that looked like this.

Everyone was vaulting a DTY until Shawn Johnson was a AA gymnast who vaulted the extremely difficult "Amanar."  Suddenly, it seemed like every all arounder NEEDED an Amanar.  Everybody was risking form, technique, and their knees (Mustafina).  All of these gymnasts had a beautiful DTY, and ruined their form on the Amanar (Raisman). (Trying to get a comparison video here, so bear with me!)

In conclusion, I miss DTYs, and I think unless your amanar looks like this, stick with the DTY!:)

5 comments:

  1. Baitova was the one who get her name on it (though I always find it a tad unfair that Simona has her vault immortalised but the DTY is only ever called that) but Shevchenko and Gurova both performed it first, in 1986. I hate it when that happens, and it's so common. I think video evidence should be enough and should have been enough for confirmation of a skill. It kills me about Priakhina!

    Anyway, absolutely agree, filthy amanars are dangerous and it's sad we could well be in for seeing an injury in London. It was especially bad when you see all the interviews with Alexandrov and Rodionenko stating baldly 'no amanar, no team', (or 'no jump 2.5 screw, no team XD) that they needed 3 and that's the only reason why Paseka got on. Something's wrong when you pick a gymnast who has crashed more than once in the same year on the only event she's needed for. Hopefully the fact that it is being devalued means it won't be worth chucking next quad.

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    1. Thanks for the info! I'm kinda a baby, I was born in 1997, so I barely know pre-1996, so finding out who first preformed it took a lot of research!

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    2. Haha ah I'm sort of a baby, born in 1988 but I've watched everything on youtube, barely anything on TV because my obsession is new. Isn't youtube great!

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  2. Um, Baitova, Golea and Shushunova all performed the DTY at the '87 Rotterdam World Championships, as well...

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  3. Gurova was apparently the first to do this vault at the 1984 DTB Cup.

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