The “One-Armed” Vault | MyKayla Skinner's Cheng Evolution (2013-2021)

Being so bad at a vault that they make a deduction just for you that´s worth double a fall in insane. What's even more insane is her complaining they did it to keep her off the team/podium.

Great time for this to be recommended to me 💀

I love how you can hear tim getting increasingly more annoyed about her one arm over the years

The one arm cheng was basically her doing a moors from the springboard and sticking out a hand to touch the table

It’s almost like the horse is just a formality and she’s flinging herself over it.

I'm amazed her legs never clipped the block since she gets so little air

I really respect that she's really worked on improving her form for this last olympic games. Not only on vault but on the other apparatus as well

“It’s a technique that she’s developed” 💀💀

I’m just glad she learned how to salute. 😂

She really knows how to peak at the right time… in 2014 her cheng was the best it had ever been and same at 2021 olympic trials and tokyo

2021 was the year her block improved. She still gets no lift off the table and her air position is piked, but I appreciate the improvements.

She does not get as much air time on that vault, so she barely blocks with that hand bc she is rushing to to tuck that elbow and to start twisting as fast as she can to get it around...but if she would just block correctly, she would have more air time and way more time to twist that vault around lol Everyone calls Myk a great tumbler, but I've always believed she's more of a twister, one of the fastest in elite.

Imagine if Mykayla's coaches had never encouraged this 1 arm 1/4 twist on shoulder nonsense since the very beginning and she had at least 7 years to perfect the front block on this vault. ……

I feel like Mykayla is someone who was never supposed to compete at this high of a level but she just forced herself in through sheer force of will. And as someone who also stayed in the sport for wayyyy longer than they probably should have, I have to respect it lol

She is basically just tumbling over the vault. When you compare this to other Real Chengs you see the difference

I mean, it's kind of impressive she actually manages to do this with one arm

Leanne Wong had a two point deduction at trials for not blocking off both hands.

As a gymnast there's definitely something satisfying about her changing her block technique to push into a more genuine forward salto for this vault, so I'm glad she made improvements there... that said, I feel like one could debate the idea that Skinner was essentially doing a different vault than a Cheng. Personally, I'm not a big fan of CoP elements that are distinguished based on twist timing (this makes for some really tough judgment calls when viewing in real time), but there's lots of precedent for this: wasn't the "Phelps" vault was rated higher than a Tsuk layout 1/2, on the basis of the earlier twist (albeit, looking back, Phelps herself really didnt twist all that early)? And I don't think there was a start value distinction, but weren't the Khorkina and Podkapayeva vaults (both yurchenko 1/2 on, piked 1/2 off) distinguished based on Khorkina's early turn and Podkapayeva's later turn? ANYWAY JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT LOL

I wish she had fixed her block earlier than 2021. When she uses two hands, she gets so much more height which allows her to have a more laid out body position. It's a way better vault. Honestly, seeing her do the Cheng in 2013/2014, I had no idea that it wasn't supposed to look like that until Simone started doing that vault.

As much as I despise this vault of hers, she definitely improved the blocking technique as the years went on. Like it’s not good, but it’s at least two arms lol