Ashley Postell from Utah has the top average score in the NCAA on Vault.
The Salt Lake Tribune documented Postell’s March 7 vault against Oregon State. She received a 9.95 score, a combination of two judges’ scores – a 9.9 and a perfect 10.0.
Charity Greene, the judge who awarded the 10.0, was asked to analyze the vault frame-by-frame. (Every judge awarding a “perfect” score should be required to do so.)
The most interesting frame to me is this one, the point of contact on landing. Technique is very good.
Unfortunately, NCAA judges want the chest position vertical on landing. The gymnast must stop the rotation of the somersault and come to a stop, somehow. There are many ways to do this biomechanically. But the only acceptable way in College gymnastics rules is like a knife stuck into a plank.
Shannon Miller’s landing on her first vault from the 1992 Olympics is perfect — yet her torso is not vertical. (Was Shannon fantastic, or what? Apologies in advance for the antics of Steve Nunno. His retirement from coaching was a happy day for me.)
Click PLAY or watch Shannon on YouTube.
(via difficulty plus execution)
If you want to see Ashley’s vault analysis for yourself, download the PDF file linked from this article:
Gymnastics: Postell’s vault broken down by a judge
The best Yurchenko fulls I’ve ever seen were done by Chinese men (and probably Kyle Shewfelt) but I do not have the links at my finger tips. Leave a comment if you have a personal favourite. We can use it as a 10 standard when comparing with College women’s vaults.
9 comments ↓
Best female Yurchenko that I’ve seen is without question Cheng Fei. Her Yurchenko 2 1/2 done at 2005 World’s (I believe…Melbourne) was incredible. Her technique is superb. Go have a look for yourself.
I always enjoyed Zmeskal’s Yurchenko…
[...] Related post: judging breakdown – Yurchenko vault [...]
Jana Komrskova had a very good Yurchenko full for her second vault at 2007 worlds.
Shannon’s first vault in the Barcelona AA WAS a thing of beauty. But why are you happy that Steve left coaching? And – his “antics”? His reaction was because he was seeing something few coaches ever see: his gymnast doing EXACTLY what she’s trained years for. That was a beautiful moment – for Shannon, and for the only coach on earth who was fit to handle her. I like your site, though. You have a lot of good info.
Sarah!
You’ve obviously not met Steve Nunno, Sarah.
If you had, you’d know what I’m talking about.
Hey, just clicked over to your Gym Girls site. Good job.
I’ve “subscribed” so I’ll be notified when you put up new content.
I did like your Steve Nunno post on this page:
http://worldclassgymnastics.webs.com/top10s.htm
Shannon is awesome, by the way. I was pretty “star struck” to meet her.
Hey, Rick,
I don’t know how to reply directly to you here, so hopefully this will do. If you know how to reply directly, let me know, please.
No, I have not met Steve Nunno. I just know that Shannon was difficult, and Steve seemed to be able to contain her.
Thanks for the kind words about my insane site. I didn’t know you subscribed because I haven’t figured out all the stat tracking stuff there yet. But I’m happy you did. There should be new stuff up pretty regularly. Check out “Nadia in Outer Space” in the blog section. That’s pretty amazing – and true.
You met Shannon? How old was she when you met her? Was it after she destroyed Husband #1 and moved on to #2, or was it before all that?
Sarah!
I idolized Shannon, always. But never met her.
Then perhaps 5 years ago at Woodward West Camp I sat down at the coaches meeting. She turned to me and said, “Hi, I’m Shannon.”
I hadn’t recognized her!
Oops.
Since then she came out to our big competition in Idaho as “celebrity” Olympian. Fantastic.
I’ve only GREAT things to say about Shannon Miller. The gymnast and the person.
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