WASHINGTON — Simone Biles will compete this weekend for the first time in almost 600 days and it looks like she’s got something extra special in store.
During U.S. Classic podium training on Friday, the 24-year-old Texan successfully landed a new vault no female has ever attempted in competition.
It’s called a Yurchenko double pike. It’s a roundoff onto the springboard, a back handspring onto the vault and ends with a piked double backflip to the landing.
“I just got a little nervous on the landing,” Biles, the most decorated gymnast in World Championship history, could be heard telling her coach after almost sticking the landing.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist has been dropping tease videos of herself practicing the Yurchenko double pike dating back to February 2020.
Back in April, Biles confirmed she planned to debut the vault before the Tokyo Olympics.
According to NBC Sports, Biles told reporters after podium training that she practiced the vault twice and Friday and feels “really good going into tomorrow.”
Biles will compete during Saturday night’s session of the U.S. Classic.
Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin was clearly a fan and tweeted video of the vault from another perspective.
Biles also said during the post-training news conference that she was actually “really nervous” right before, according to ESPN.
“I was like, ‘It’s ok, I’ve done this so many times.’ I’ve been doing it for months now. So I felt prepared and I knew I was prepared, it was just the initial landing out there in the arena,” she said, ESPN reported.
It’s looking likely this could be the fifth “Biles” skill named after her in the sport’s Code of Points.