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!:)