The Vault

LinLin Deng (China) on vault

History

The vault first began as a version of the mens pommel horse, without the handles. It was placed perpendicular to the run, as pictured below.





The vault stayed with this configuration for over a century in the Olympic games, but it was blamed for many serious and sometimes fatal accidents. FIG, the International Gymnastics Federation decided it was too dangerous and re-evaluated and changed the apparatus, citing both safety reasons and the desire to facilitate more impressive acrobatics. The new vaulting table still in use today, was first introduced at the 2001 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

Routines

In competitions, gymnasts perform on the vault by running at high speed down a padded runway. They jump onto the springboard and are launched onto the vaulting table onto their hands.

For vaults such as the Yurchenko, the gymnast will put their hands onto a mat that is placed before the springboard, round-off onto the board and do a back handspring onto the vault. The off-flight may be as simple as leaping over the apparatus or as complicated as executing several twists and turns in the air. The gymnast then lands on the mat on the other side of the apparatus.