Gymnast Simone Biles has well and truly cemented her GOAT status after pulling off a near-perfect execution of a vault so difficult and risky to perform that no female athlete has ever attempted to land it in competition.
The 24-year-old four-time Olympic gold medalist was caught on camera practicing her Yurchenko double pike during podium training for this weekend’s U.S. Classic meet, which will mark Simone’s first competition in more than 18 months.
In video footage taken on Friday, Simone somehow manages to make the vault look almost effortless, giving little indication of just how complex and dangerous a maneuver it is to complete.
The 11-second clip, which was captured by former Olympic gymnast-turned-commentator Nastia Liukin, shows the talented gymnast flying down the runway towards the vault, before performing a round-off onto the springboard, a back handspring onto the vault itself, and then two aerial flips in the pike position – which requires a gymnast to keep their hips bent and their knees straight.