As rare and endangered as the exotic white tiger, the Yurchenko double pike is, for now, extinct. Olympic champion Simone Biles threw a funeral for the skill as her way of announcing that she’s not going to do the famously almost-impossible move anymore, and since she’s arguably the only person on Earth who can land it…yeah, we’re not gonna see it for a while.
Biles captioned Instagram pictures of herself sitting atop a vault, surrounded by funereal white flowers, with “rest in peace yurchenko double pike 🫶🏾”.
The stunt involves two full flips in the “pike” position—bent at the waist with straight legs. As USA Today explains, “The Yurchenko double pike, now known as the Biles II, is so difficult that few men even try it. That’s because it has no bailout. Once you start rotating, you’re committed, and you either land on your feet or, if it goes wrong, you land on your neck.” (See the move here.)
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Biles is the only female gymnast to ever successfully pull it off in competition, but there are men who can execute the move, like Paul Juda, a member of the bronze-medal-winning men’s gymnastics team. But even Juda admitted that it’s really rare and not in an athlete’s repertoire all the time.
“I actually had to discontinue training the vault after the World Championships to lessen harm on my elbows,” Juda told NBC Chicago. “It’s very, very grueling.… it takes a lot of impact.” So, for now, the Yurchenko double pike is on hiatus, perhaps to be performed again, but not by Biles.
On Instagram, absolutely no one vaulted, sorry, faulted Simone Biles for putting the dangerous and difficult pike to bed. “She said ‘i hope yall saw that bc i will NOT be doing it again!!’” wrote one commenter. Biles’s former teammate Laurie Hernandez added the salute emoji. Rest in power, crazy impossible vault trick!
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