On 1 October 2023 in Antwerp, Simone Biles became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike vault in competition. The element was immediately codified as the Biles II, carrying the highest difficulty value in the women's Code of Points.
A vault first seen in Antwerp
The setting was the same hall where a 16-year-old Biles won her first world all-around title in 2013. This time she approached the table with a skill no female gymnast had attempted on the world stage. The round-off back handspring entry launched her into two piked rotations.
She landed cleanly, a single step back on the mat. The arena rose at once. The Yurchenko double pike — until then a vault seen only in men's gymnastics — was now hers.
A record of rewriting the book
This is the fifth element to carry her name across three apparatuses. Each extension of the Code of Points has been a direct response to a skill she brought from the training floor to the competition podium. Her previous named skills include the floor triple-twisting double tucked salto and the beam double-double dismount, both from 2019.
A week later, she closed the same championships with a record sixth all-around world title and a career total of 30 world medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in history.
The twisties and the return
The vault landed in Antwerp was a statement of return. Two years earlier at the Tokyo Olympics, Biles withdrew mid-competition after losing air awareness — the condition gymnasts call the twisties — and faced questions about whether she would compete again. The Biles II was her answer: a vault that demanded absolute spatial control, performed on the sport's largest stage.
In Paris the following summer, she reclaimed the Olympic all-around title and led the United States to team gold, adding her seventh Olympic gold to a career that began in this very city.
