Event 2025 US Nationals Senior Women Day 1 (Friday, August 8, 2025)

[Aeris]

how much harder even a pikey Cheng is than a Pod

Of course it's harder, but the number of people who have been able to materialize a creditable Cheng when they are unable to get credited for a Lopez (at least not consistently) is very high now. There's no other instance in gymnastics of suddenly being able to do a 1.4 higher D-score vault. That's a greater score difference than going from a single twisting Yurchenko to an Amanar, which of course never happens. In recent years there are now more Chengs appearing out of nowhere than there are Amanars from people who already had a solid double Yurchenko. The point of this all being - the code is deeply flawed and the Cheng is most "bang-for-your-buck" vault to train.

 

[Sanzhirovka]

Thanks - not sure why so many of the US WAGs are clinging on to the scary double pikes where they land with their noses on their knees - they must be losing far more in E than they gain for the 0.1 D.

I might be interesting to compare average deductions for double tucks vs double pikes.

 

[Doug1233]

Isn’t that good in an individual worlds?

only if she’s top 2 AA

 

[Doug1233]

Of course it's harder, but the number of people who have been able to materialize a creditable Cheng when they are unable to get credited for a Lopez (at least not consistently) is very high now. There's no other instance in gymnastics of suddenly being able to do a 1.4 higher D-score vault. That's a greater score difference than going from a single twisting Yurchenko to an Amanar, which of course never happens. In recent years there are now more Chengs appearing out of nowhere than there are Amanars from people who already had a solid double Yurchenko. The point of this all being - the code is deeply flawed and the Cheng is most "bang-for-your-buck" vault to train.

It’s absolutely the case that, if you can do a decent pike half, training that extra full twist will give you more bump to your d score than any other upgrade across the entirety of your AA set.

it’s why skye, jordan and leanne were all trying to crank one out last year. it’s why jess tore her knee up trying to do it. it’s such a valuable (but dangerous) upgrade.

the cheng was Jordan’s path to Paris, absent 3 of the top contenders going down. which, fortunately for her, happened.

 

[RedBirdie]

Hang and Pease also have two vaults, not sure why they didn't compete them here. This isn't really a U.S. problem this year, there aren't really any vaulters anywhere. Same with bars!

Pease did two vaults. DTY and Pod (she was going for a Lopez). 13.275 average because she landed super short on the DTY.

No idea why Hang didn't do two vaults.

 

[navyblue]

I might be interesting to compare average deductions for double tucks vs double pikes.

Yeah, so this is the thing, as a gymnast I preferred double pikes to double tucks because doing a double tuck without cowboying is actually sorta terrifying -- your knees are just all up in your face. So, if you decide to cowboy, then there's the built in deduction. I think for most of these gymnasts doing double pikes, they might not necessarily know how to do the double tuck dismount on beam. Skye Blakely is one gymnast who's shown us both though, and has made the strategy choice to keep her double tuck lately I suppose.

 

[navyblue]

Of course it's harder, but the number of people who have been able to materialize a creditable Cheng when they are unable to get credited for a Lopez (at least not consistently) is very high now. There's no other instance in gymnastics of suddenly being able to do a 1.4 higher D-score vault. That's a greater score difference than going from a single twisting Yurchenko to an Amanar, which of course never happens. In recent years there are now more Chengs appearing out of nowhere than there are Amanars from people who already had a solid double Yurchenko. The point of this all being - the code is deeply flawed and the Cheng is most "bang-for-your-buck" vault to train.

Maroney actually went from a full twisting yurchenko to an Amanar.

I do sort of agree with your overall point about the Cheng... I think in recent years we have seen judges being overly strict on downgrading the Lopez (I think this happened very unfairly to Blakely at a recent Worlds maybe?) At this competition though, I think both Wong and Pease were fairly credited with the Pod.

I feel like if we were seeing a bunch of gymnasts 'code hacking' into a Cheng in way that gave a huge 1.4 boost to their AA score I might care more though -- my issue has less to do with anything the code is causing, and more just that the quality of vaulting is pretty poor in the US and around the world right now. I wish it were treated more seriously as an apparatus and that if other events can have 5 distinct CR groups, vault could require 2 vaults from different families instead of this weird "opt-in" format to finals that sometimes leads to competitions with literally no winners (when no one chooses to do two vaults) -- just kinda weird and asymmetrical and unsatisfying IMO.

 

[makam]

Pease did two vaults. DTY and Pod (she was going for a Lopez). 13.275 average because she landed super short on the DTY.

No idea why Hang didn't do two vaults.

Hang seemed to be having an off night. Maybe they decided to be cautious. I hope she has a better night 2.