For people who don't follow gymnastics that closely, they may not realize what a big deal this is, but let me try to explain:
Let's first try to explain this with numbers:
- Gymnastics is a sport where mere .10s of points separate gymnasts.
- Simone Biles has another original vault that has a 6.4 start value, which is tied for the highest currently.
- The vault in this video is (provisionally) worth 6.6!
- Other top gymnasts are competing vaults worth 5.4.
Let me try to explain this as part of the evolution of the sport:
In vault, there are families of vaults, and they're mostly distinguished by how the gymnast hits the vaulting table. This particular vault belongs to a family called
Yurchenko (in which the gymnast does a backflip onto the vault). The Yurchenko is pretty much
the most popular style of vault in high level women's gymnastics.
Currently, the most difficult Yurchenko-type vault done in women's gymnastics is an
Amanar, in which a gymnast vaults off the table and does 2.5 twists while keeping their entire body straight (Simone has
a really good one).
For decades, gymnasts and gym fans have been expecting the next evolution of Yurchenko vaults to come in women's gymnastics with someone landing one with 3 twists. No one has landed it in competition yet.
The triple twisting Yurchenko would likely be worth 6.2 points.
Had someone landed that in competition, the next Yurchenko evolution gym fans might have expected would be a woman landing a Yurchenko double tuck. That would be similar to what Simone landed here, except it'd be done with the legs bent, and the gymnast rolled a ball in what's called the tuck position. It's easier and faster to rotate while in the tuck position, compared to what Simone is doing here, which is a pike position (body bent with the legs extended straight).
A couple of legendary vaulters in the sport have talked about trying out the Yurchenko double tuck in training, but they generally concluded that they didn't get enough height to make the move safe or feasible.
Per Simone herself, she never even tried the tucked version, she just went right to the piked one.
So yeah, Simone basically skipped 2 levels in the expected evolution of the sport!.