He J., de Oca M.J., Zhang L.: WHY THE VAULT BECAME SUPERIOR TO OTHER …             Vol. 14, Issue 2: 237 - 247 
 
Science of Gymnastics Journal                                237                           Science of Gymnastics Journal 
 
 
WHY THE VAULT BECAME SUPERIOR TO OTHER 
EVENTS IN WOMEN’S ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS AT THE 
OLYMPICS? 
 
 
Jun He1, Jeffrey Montez de Oca2 and Lei Zhang2 
 
1 School of Sports Science and Physical Education, Nanjing Normal University, China 
2 Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, USA 
 
 
 
Original article                                                                          DOI:10.52165/sgj.14.2.237-247 
Abstract 
Critics argue that disciplines in women’s artistic gymnastics are not equal and the vault is 
generally scored much higher than the uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise. The aim 
of this study is to understand why the vault became superior to other women’s events. The data 
are the official results for the 586 women gymnasts in Qualification at Olympics from 2000 to 
2020. The One-Way ANOVA was used to analyze the variance of D-scores, E-scores and F-
scores for women gymnasts obtained on each apparatus. Our research shows that disciplines 
in women’s artistic gymnastics have not been equal for gymnasts when trying to obtain high F-
scores in the past 6 Olympics. Among the four women’s events, the vault came to be the one on 
which gymnasts are more likely to obtain high F-scores after the 2000 Olympics. We indicate 
that the strength of vault resulted from the introduction of the new vaulting table in 2001 and 
the new open-ended rules in 2006. Although the two big changes implemented by the 
International Federation of Gymnastics in the beginning of the new millennium were aimed at 
improving safety of the vault and fairness of judging, the interplay of the two big changes 
unintentionally promoted the vault to become the most powerful event in women’s artistic 
gymnastics. Such unanticipated consequence of purposeful action may constitute the most 
important element (i.e., imbalance of disciplines) in the sport. Accordingly, this research has 
the potential to shed new light on not only this important topic of equality between disciplines, 
but also broader trends in modern artistic gymnastics. 
 
Keywords: artistic gymnastics, vault, discipline, equality, Olympics.
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
Women’s artistic gymnastics (WAG) 
made its first appearance at the 1928 
Olympic Games in Amsterdam. In 1933, the 
women’s technical committee (WTC) was 
founded and governs the development of 
WAG (Pajek, 2018). The Code of Points 
(CoP) is utilized by the WTC to encourage 
particular movements or styles, including 
acrobatics and artistry. During the 1950s 
and 1960s, the CoP was centered around 
artistry and enlivened by ballet. 
Consequently, in that period, achievements 
in the sport favored those who brought 
elegance to exercises (Atiković, Kalinski, & 
Čuk, 2017; Kerr, 2006). Since then, 
however, women’s artistic gymnastics 
evolved from this balletic tradition into a 
more acrobatic sport. As a result, in the 
1970s, this sport saw an abundance of 
young athletes performing high level 
acrobatics at the expense of elegance and 
He J., de Oca M.J., Zhang L.: WHY THE VAULT BECAME SUPERIOR TO OTHER …             Vol. 14, Issue 2: 237 - 247 
 
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artistry (Barker-Ruchti, 2009; Cervin, 2015; 
Kerr, Barker-Ruchti, Nunomura, Cervin, & 
Schubring, 2018). Since 1996, gymnasts 
have no longer performed compulsory 
routines on each apparatus and instead only 
competed in optional routines (Pajek, 
2018). In 2006, the International Federation 
of Gymnastics (FIG) removed the “perfect 
10” as a maximum score, and replaced it 
with the open-ended scoring system, in 
which difficulty scores no longer have a 
ceiling. In the open-ended format, the total 
score consists of two scores: the 
requirements and the difficulty of a routine 
(D-score) plus execution (E-score). Since 
2006, updates to the scoring system in each 
Olympic cycle have pushed the sport in the 
acrobatic direction (Cervin, 2015). This 
trend, however, has been controlled to some 
degree as the FIG gave more weight to the 
performance quality of a routine after 
Beijing 2008. The key aspects are both 
greater deductions for errors and the scoring 
of artistry introduced into the women’s CoP 
(on both the balance beam and the floor 
exercise) which means that the performance 
quality significantly affects the results in the 
finals (He, Montez de Oca, & Zhang, 2020).  
While the weight between ‘difficulty’ 
and ‘artistry’ has been adjusted so that the 
new judging system can work well, another 
issue emerged. This issue is with the 
equality between disciplines, as disciplines 
of artistic gymnastics are quite different 
from each other in terms of skills, 
compositional requirements, connection 
bonus, specific penalties, etc. Bučar, Čuk, 
Pajek, Karacsony, and Leskošek (2012) 
indicated that the vault and the floor 
exercise finals were sessions with the 
largest scope between high and low E-
scores, but they also noted that more 
inspections should be made on this issue in 
future analyses of judging. Further research 
studies identified that the vault, compared 
to other WAG disciplines, is one on which 
deductions in execution tend to be minor 
(Kalinski, Atiković, Jelaska, & Milić, 2016; 
Kalinski, Jelaska, & Atiković, 2017; 
Kalinski, Padulo, Atiković, Milić, & 
Jelaska, 2016), and one on which F-scores 
are significantly different from those on 
other apparatuses in WAG all-around 
qualification results (Atiković et al., 2020; 
Massidda & Calò, 2012).  
Despite the aforementioned research 
that focused on the most important 
apparatus for WAG all around success, 
there is a paucity of literature that explains 
why the vault is scored much higher than 
other WAG events. Consequently, the aim 
of this research is to understand how the 
vault has become superior to other 
disciplines in WAG. We analyze the 
question by focusing on two major changes 
that are unprecedented in the history of 
artistic gymnastics: one is the replacement 
of the vaulting horse by the vaulting table in 
2001, and the other is the introduction of 
open-ended rules in 2006 (Naundorf, 
Brehmer, Knoll, Bronst, & Wagner, 2008). 
We believe that the interplay of these two 
major forces led to the superiority of the 
vault over other WAG disciplines. By 
focusing on the perspective of key changes 
within this sport, we believe that this 
research has the potential to shed a new 
light on not only this important topic, but 
also broader trends in modern artistic 
gymnastics. 
 
METHODS 
 
Since gymnasts strive to achieve the 
best performances and highest scores at the 
Olympic Games (OG) (as cited in Čuk & 
Atiković, 2009; Kalinski, Atiković, et al., 
2016), we sampled all women gymnasts 
who have participated in the Olympic 
Games since 2000,  as that was when 
competitors started to perform only optional 
routines (i.e., OG2000, OG2004, OG2008, 
OG2012, OG2016, OG2020). There were 
98 women gymnasts at each Olympics, 
except at OG2000 and OG2012 (97 women 
gymnasts). Altogether, 586 women 
gymnasts were analyzed from the past 6 
Olympics. Further, WAG competitions at 
the Olympic Games include four sessions: 
Qualification (C-Ⅰ), All-around Final (C-Ⅱ), 
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Apparatus Finals (C-Ⅲ) and Team Final (C-
Ⅳ), which are held on different days. We 
analyzed performance scores in 
Qualification since this session can be 
considered the most important; it is the 
round where both teams and individual 
gymnasts compete to qualify for the finals 
(Kalinski, Atiković, et al., 2016). In our 
analysis, we used scores on the first vault 
since generally most competitors completed 
only one vault in world competitions 
(Kalinski, Atiković, et al., 2016). 
We analyzed the D-score, E-score, and 
F-score for exercises performed by women 
gymnasts on all events (i.e., vault, uneven 
bars, balance beam and floor exercise) in 
Qualifications from OG2000 to OG2020. 
There were only F-scores at the OG2000 
and OG2004 because exercises were judged 
under the traditional “perfect 10” system. 
Additionally, we dropped cases with “0” 
points from the statistical analysis. We 
retrieved these scores from the results book 
available at the Gymnastics Results website 
(https://gymnasticsresults.com/). 
First, we calculated means and 
standard deviations of D-, E-, and F-scores. 
We presented our results in the “mean  
standard deviation” manner in Table 1. 
Then, we conducted the One-Way ANOVA 
to detect the mean difference of scores 
across four apparatuses, i.e., the vault (VT), 
uneven bars (UB), balance beam (BB), and 
floor exercise (FX). For the WAG 
Qualifications at the OG2000 and 2004, the 
means of F-scores on these apparatuses 
were analyzed. For data after 2004, we 
applied this analytical strategy to D-, E-, 
and F-scores. Each ANOVA with a 
statistically significant (p<0.05) F ratio 
indicated that at least one apparatus had a 
different mean score. We computed the eta 
square ( ) as the overall effect size of the 
mean difference across four apparatuses. To 
further demonstrate which apparatus had a 
mean that was different from another three, 
we used the Levene’s test result to guide our 
choice of the suitable multiple comparison 
test statistic. When the Levene’s test was 
not statistically significant, we conducted 
multiple mean comparisons by using the 
Tukey’s B statistic. When the Levene test 
returned a statistically significant result, we 
performed the analysis again with the 
Games-Howell test. For each significant 
mean difference identified by either 
Tukey’s B or Games-Howell statistic, we 
further calculated the Cohen’s d value to 
assess the effect size. To follow the 
convention, we used eta square values of 
0.01, 0.06, and 0.14 and d values of 0.20, 
0.50, and 0.80 as thresholds of small, 
medium, and large effects, respectively 
(Cohen, 1988). All statistics was obtained 
from the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0. 
 
RESULTS 
 
Differences in F-score means of WAG 
disciplines from OG2000 to OG2020 
Table 1 shows the One-Way ANOVA 
with post hoc comparisons in F-score 
means, D-score means and E-score means 
for the past six Olympics (i.e. from OG2000 
to OG2020). As far as the F-score mean is 
concerned, at OG2000, which was the first 
time compulsory routines were no longer 
required, there were no statistical 
differences of F-score mean between WAG 
events, although the F-score mean on both 
balance beam and particularly uneven bars 
looked a little bit higher than the vault and 
the floor exercise. The following Olympics 
in 2004 were not only the last time that 
competitions at the Olympics were judged 
under the traditional “perfect 10” system, 
but also the first time that the traditional 
vaulting horse was replaced by the new 
vaulting table. It can be seen that at the 
OG2004, the vault stands out from all WAG 
events and shows significantly higher 
results in terms of F-score mean than both 
the balance beam and the floor exercise, and 
is equal to the uneven bars. With the 
Cohen’s d value, we know that the effect 
size of 0.83 (the mean difference between 
the vault and the balance beam in standard 
deviation units) and 0.50 (the mean 
difference between the vault and the floor 
exercise in standard deviation units) are 
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considered to be large and medium 
respectively.  
Four years later at the OG2008, 
when the “perfect 10” scoring system gave 
way to the “open ended” system, however, 
significant differences only emerged 
between the vault and the floor exercise, 
with the medium effect size of 0.68. But it 
can be seen that at the OG2008, the F-score 
mean for the vault was quite a bit higher 
than for the other three WAG events vis-à-
vis the previous Olympics (i.e., OG2000 
and OG2004). At the OG2012, the vault 
pulled away in terms of the F-score mean, 
extending its lead to around 0.6 points, i.e.,  
there were significant differences between 
the vault and the other three events (effect 
sizes of 0.56, 0.86 and 0.80 are considered 
to be medium and large respectively). 
Meanwhile, no significant differences 
existed between the uneven bars, the 
balance beam and the floor exercise at the 
2012 Olympics. At OG2016 and OG2020, 
the F-score mean on the vault was 
significantly higher than on the other three 
WAG events, particularly at the OG2020 
where the F-score mean for the vault was 
around 1.0 point higher than for other WAG 
events, and the effect sizes of 0.80, 1.36 and 
1.47 were all large. Additionally, it should 
be noted that at the OG2016, the F-score 
mean for the uneven bars was significantly 
higher than both for the balance beam and 
the floor exercise, but not so at the OG2020. 
It can be concluded that basically the four 
WAG disciplines have not been equal for 
gymnasts in terms of obtaining high F-
scores in the past six Olympics (eta square 
values for F-scores of all events were 
considered to be medium at OG2004 
through to OG2012 and large at both 
OG2016 and OG2020). Among them, the 
vault came to be the one on which WAG 
gymnasts are more likely to obtain high F-
scores after OG2000 (especially at the 
Olympics in 2012 and beyond). Although 
sometimes the uneven bars showed the 
momentum to rise in terms of the F-score 
mean, it lagged behind the vault most of the 
time. In the following section, we further 
examine the components of F-score (i.e., D-
score and E-score) from OG2008 through to 
OG2020.   
 
Differences in D-score means for WAG 
disciplines from OG2008 to OG2020 
We investigated the D-score means (as 
well as E-score in the following section) for 
WAG disciplines since OG2008 where the 
F-score began to be calculated by using D-
score and E-score under the new open-
ended system. At OG2008, the D-score 
means on both the uneven bars and the 
balance beam are significantly higher than 
those on the vault and the floor exercise, 
and further scores in the floor exercise are 
significantly higher than on the vault. 
Consequently, the D-score mean for the 
vault is the lowest in comparison with the 
other three WAG events at the OG2008, 
which is similar to the maximum D-score 
differences between WAG disciplines in 
2008 (Figure 1). At OG2012, the D-score 
means on all apparatuses but vault 
decreased mainly because the difficulties 
counted in routines on the uneven bars, the 
balance beam and the floor exercise 
decreased from 10 at OG2008 (FIG, 2006) 
to 8 at OG2012 (FIG, 2009), so that the D-
score means for all WAG events 
approximated each other (only the uneven 
bars event was significantly different from 
the floor exercise). At OG2016, the D-score 
means on all WAG events increased only a 
little in comparison to those at the OG2012, 
with significant differences between the 
uneven bars, the vault and the floor 
exercise. At OG2020, despite a sharp fall of 
D-score means for all WAG events 
compared to OG2016 (especially the vault 
on which the maximum D-score was 6.0, 
which is much less than four years earlier), 
both the uneven bars and the balance beam 
scores were significantly higher than those 
on the vault and the floor exercise. In short, 
it is obvious that the maximum D-scores are 
different for each event from OG2008 to 
OG2020. Coupled with the differences for 
D-score means between WAG events, we 
can conclude that although the difficulty 
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value for elements on each apparatus varied 
at different Olympics due to the updates to 
the CoP, WAG disciplines are literally not 
equal: eta square values for D-scores for all 
events were considered to be small at both 
the OG2008 and the OG2012 and medium 
at the OG2016 and the OG2020. Gymnasts 
are more likely to achieve high D-scores on 
both the uneven bars and the balance beam 
relative to the vault and the floor exercise, 
although such chances seemed to decrease 
on the whole as Cohen’s d value for each 
significant D-score mean difference showed 
a downward trend after OG2008.  
 
Differences in E-score means for WAG 
disciplines from OG2008 to OG2020 
When we refer to E-score means, the 
situation seems pretty much the reverse of 
how the D-score means work. At the 
OG2008, the E-score means for both the 
vault and the floor exercise are significantly 
higher than those for the uneven bars and 
the balance beam. Particularly the vault 
stands out where the E-score mean was 
9.150 points with small standard deviation. 
Additionally, the maximum vault E-score 
reached 9.650 points (Figure 2). Such 
numbers appeared to large extent also at the 
following Olympic Games from 2012 to 
2020 (eta square values for E-scores for all 
events were considered large from OG2008 
to OG2020), although the E-score means 
and the maximum E-score for all WAG 
events dropped by different degrees after 
the OG2008, mainly due to stricter 
deductions for execution and artistry: e.g., 
apart from a deduction for a fall that was 
increased from 0.8 in 2006 to 1.0 in 2009, 
the FIG added the evaluation of artistry on 
both the balance beam and the floor 
exercise to the new scoring system in the 
2009 CoP (FIG, 2009), and refined it 
afterwards in the Rio (FIG, 2015) and 
Tokyo cycle (FIG, 2017). Additionally, the 
vault rules of landing within the corridor 
down the center of the landing mat was 
introduced to the CoP in 2009, while on the 
uneven bars, more specific deductions for 
E-panel, like the angle of completion of 
elements, were implemented in the London 
Olympic cycle (FIG, 2009). Regardless of 
the updated rules regarding execution in 
different WAG events, the vault has 
consistently remained the apparatus where 
the deductions for execution are the lowest 
among WAG events (the E-score means 
were almost above 8.8 points at the OG2008 
and beyond) and had a small standard 
deviation (around 0.4 points from OG2008 
to OG2020), which is congruent with the 
results of previous research (Atiković, 
Kalinski, Bijelić, & Vukadinović, 2011; 
Kalinski, Atiković, et al., 2016; Kalinski et 
al., 2017; Kalinski, Padulo, et al., 2016). 
The other three events typically score lower 
on E-score than the vault. This can be 
demonstrated by Cohen’s d value for each 
significant E-score mean difference 
between the vault and the other three WAG 
events at the Olympics from 2008 to 2020 
(Table 1), nearly all of which exceed one 
and a quarter standard deviation units, 
representing substantial effect sizes. 
Moreover, we noted that among the 
four WAG events, the balance beam is the 
event on which women gymnasts are more 
challenged to perform with perfection, 
probably due to the anxiety caused by the 
risk of injury (Kolt & Kirkby, 1994; Sands, 
2000), the instability of balance, and 
deductions for artistry (Kalinski, Padulo, et 
al., 2016). This is especially striking at the 
OG2020 where the E-score mean and the 
maximum E-score on the balance beam is 
less than 7.3 and 8.4 points respectively, 
which was the lowest since OG2008 when 
the new open-ended scoring system made 
its Olympic debut. Nevertheless, it should 
be noted that although the difficulty value 
(both the D-score mean and the maximum 
D-score) of the balance beam increased at 
OG2016 in comparison to OG2012, the E-
score mean for the balance beam did not 
decrease correspondingly at the OG2016 
(with fewer standard deviations relative to 
OG2012), although the maximum E-score 
decreased a little. This result presented a 
challenge to Kalinski (2017) who argued 
that the higher difficulty values on the 
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balance beam would lead to a lower score 
for execution, based on the assumption that 
the performance of more complex and 
difficult elements was more challenging. 
This suggests that further research on 
whether or not routines that comprise more 
complex and difficult elements lead to 
lower E-scores and consequently F-scores 
should be conducted.  
 
 
Table 1 
ANOVA results with post hoc comparisons. 
Games Contents VT UB BB FX F 
Eta 
square 
Levene 
statistic 
Sig.mean 
difference 
(Cohen’s d) 
OG 
2000 
N 83 84 81 83       
F-score 
9.197 
±0.32 
9.329 
±0.51 
9.267 
±0.42 
9.126 
±0.54 
2.57     
OG 
2004 
N 84 85 85 83       
F-score 
9.182 
±0.22 
9.105 
±0.53 
8.853 
±0.57 
9.004 
±0.50 
9.82 
*** 
0.06 
16.41 
*** 
1-3(0.83), 
1-4(0.50), 
2-3(0.46) 
OG 
2008 
N 82 84 84 82      
D-score 
5.461 
±0.45 
6.189 
±0.66 
6.167 
±0.47 
5.696 
±0.42 
43.52 
*** 
0.27 
4.61 
** 
2-1(1.31), 
2-4(0.91), 
3-1(1.54), 
3-4(1.07), 
4-1(0.54) 
E-score 
9.150 
±0.33 
8.124 
±0.64 
8.260 
±0.66 
8.492 
±0.42 
91.82 
*** 
0.35 
12.22 
*** 
1-2(2.11), 
1-3(1.79), 
1-4(1.76), 
4-2(0.70), 
4-3(0.43) 
F-score 
14.606 
±0.65 
14.283 
±1.07 
14.426 
±0.94 
14.123 
±0.77 
6.53 
*** 
0.04 
4.07 
** 
1-4(0.68) 
OG 
2012 
N 80 78 83 82      
D-score 
5.463 
±0.57 
5.685 
±0.71 
5.553 
±0.59 
5.391 
±0.45 
3.59 
* 
0.03 
3.54 
* 
2-4(0.51) 
E-score 
8.647 
±0.47 
7.808 
±0.82 
7.618 
±0.96 
8.070 
±0.51 
41.53 
*** 
0.22 
13.58 
*** 
1-2(1.30), 
1-3(1.43), 
1-4(1.18), 
4-3(0.62) 
F-score 
14.092 
±0.85 
13.492 
±1.31 
13.167 
±1.29 
13.405 
±0.88 
13.46 
*** 
0.08 
7.17 
*** 
1-2(0.56), 
1-3(0.86), 
1-4(0.80) 
OG 
2016 
N 81 79 82 82      
D-score 
5.512 
±0.52 
5.816 
±0.61 
5.670 
±0.52 
5.444 
±0.67 
6.52 
*** 
0.05 0.99 
2-1(0.54), 
2-4(0.58) 
E-score 
8.862 
±0.42 
8.146 
±0.63 
7.801 
±0.72 
7.970 
±0.51 
74.49 
*** 
0.33 
11.69 
*** 
1-2(1.37), 
1-3(1.87), 
1-4(1.94), 
2-3(0.51) 
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F-score 
14.356 
±0.72 
13.963 
±1.12 
13.464 
±1.11 
13.297 
±1.39 
19.61 
*** 
0.12 
2.66 
* 
1-2(0.43), 
1-3(0.97), 
1-4(1.00), 
2-3(0.45), 
2-4(0.53) 
OG 
2020 
N 84 88 91 85      
D-score 
5.055 
±0.55 
5.350 
±0.85 
5.279 
±0.53 
5.034 
±0.51 
5.72 
** 
0.04 
5.86 
** 
2-1(0.43), 
2-4(0.46), 
3-1(0.42), 
3-4(0.47) 
E-score 
8.829 
±0.33 
7.593 
±0.85 
7.283 
±0.86 
7.706 
±0.51 
171.08 
*** 
0.42 
20.61 
*** 
1-2(2.07), 
1-3(2.54), 
1-4(2.67), 
4-3(0.62) 
F-score 
13.863 
±0.72 
12.869 
±1.74 
12.559 
±1.18 
12.695 
±0.86 
43.08 
*** 
0.15 
9.92 
*** 
1-2(0.80), 
1-3(1.36), 
1-4(1.47) 
Note: VT=Vault, UB=Uneven bars, BB=Balance beam, FX=floor exercise; * P<0.05, ** P<0.01, *** 
P<0.001;  
In Multiple Comparisons, 1=Vault; 2=Uneven bars; 3=Balance beam; 4=floor exercise; “1-3” shows 
that the mean of scores on vault is significantly higher than that of balance beam at 0.05 level, etc;  
We carried out Games-Howell test for all the D-, E-, and F-scores of the four WAG events from OG2004 
to OG2020, except the D-scores at OG2016 for which Tukey’s B is used; 
 
 
 
Figure 1. Maximum D-score on each apparatus in WAG Qualification at Olympics 2008-2020. 
 
 
6.5
7.1 7.0
6.0
7.7
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6.7
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VT UB BB FX
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Figure 2. Maximum E-score on each apparatus in WAG Qualification at Olympics 2008-2020. 
 
 
DISCUSSION 
 
The aim of this study is to investigate 
why the vault has stood out since OG2004 
relative to the uneven bars, balance beam 
and floor exercise in WAG. The vault 
includes only one element, which is distinct 
from the uneven bars, the balance beam and 
the floor exercise  where the content (D-
score) includes the highest 8 difficulties, 
compositional requirements, connection 
values and a bonus. Scholars argue that 
compared to the uneven bars, balance beam 
and floor exercise that require multiple 
skills and combinations, gymnasts can 
obtain higher scores on the vault since it is 
judged on a single skill alone (Atiković et 
al., 2011; Atiković et al., 2020). Such 
proposition is, however, contradicted by the 
results at the OG2000, where the superiority 
of the vault over other WAG events in terms 
of high scores barely existed. It can be seen 
that at the OG2000 the F-score mean for the 
vault is a little lower than for the uneven 
bars and balance beam, although no 
significant differences existed between 
these events. This result can confirm the 
point proposed by Kalinski, Padulo, et al. 
(2016) that the vault is a highly demanding 
apparatus and can never be considered easy 
simply because it includes only one element 
(Čuk & Atiković, 2009).    
At the following Olympics in 2004, 
where the competition ran under the same 
“perfect 10” scoring system as in 2000, 
however, the vault distinguished itself with 
F-score means significantly higher than 
both on the balance beam and the floor 
exercise. The question, hence, is why there 
is a significantly higher F-score mean for 
the vault than for the other WAG events 
except on uneven bars four years later? As 
we know, among many factors, modifying 
an apparatus will promote new elements 
and development of routines on the 
apparatus. For example, modifications 
endorsed by the FIG to the apparatuses in 
the 1970s,  such as wider-set bars, carpeted 
springboards, padded beam, and ”double 
sprung” floor  enabled gymnasts to perform 
new moves on the bars, somersault on the 
beam, and tumble to greater heights in the 
floor exercise in the following decades 
(Cervin, 2015). In this sense, we believe 
that the introduction of the new vaulting 
table in 2001 played a crucial role.  
The replacement of the traditional 
vaulting horse with the vaulting table in 
2001 by the FIG represents the largest 
single change in artistic gymnastics in 
recent times (Irwin & Kerwin, 2009). 
Although the new table was introduced by 
the FIG for safety (Kalinski et al., 2017) and 
is identical to the traditional horse in height, 
the design and construction of the new table 
9.650
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9.075 9.133
9.266
9.033
9.375
9.166
8.966
8.366
9.225
8.933 8.933
8.566
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20
08
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20
12
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20
16
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20
20
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20
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20
12
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20
16
O
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20
20
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20
08
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20
12
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20
16
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G
20
20
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20
08
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20
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20
20
VT UB BB FX
He J., de Oca M.J., Zhang L.: WHY THE VAULT BECAME SUPERIOR TO OTHER …             Vol. 14, Issue 2: 237 - 247 
 
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enabled a higher run-up velocity (Milčić, 
Živčić, & Krističević, 2019; Schärer, 
Lehmann, Naundorf, Taube, & Hübner, 
2019), facilitated more anatomically 
functional position of the arms during the 
support phase, which allows for a more 
effective transfer of horizontal kinetic 
energy to vertical and angular one for the 
second flight phase (Čuk & Ferkolj, 2012). 
Moreover, scholars indicate that the larger 
and flatter surface area of the new table 
have not only perceptually and materially 
changed the vaulting technique in 
handspring forward vault (Irwin & Kerwin, 
2009), but also made Yurchenko (round-off) 
and Tsukahara (handspring with ¼ - ½ turn) 
much easier to complete (Sands & McNeal, 
2002). Consequently, we can conclude that 
the new apparatus has influenced 
performance on the vault (Jackson, 2010), 
although it remains to be determined if the 
new table has facilitated more advanced 
vaults (Irwin & Kerwin, 2009). Therefore, 
we believe that the introduction of the new 
vaulting table by the FIG in 2001 with the 
aim of improving safety has also increased 
the probability of getting higher scores on 
the vault for women gymnasts since 
OG2004.  
In 2006, the FIG reworked the scoring 
system in response to the issue of fairness 
under the traditional “perfect 10” judging 
system (Kerr & Obel, 2015). Critics have 
since argued that the open-ended scoring 
system has led to a loss of artistry as 
gymnasts achieved top scores with 
acrobatic movements (Kerr & Obel, 2015), 
since under the new rules the sport saw a 
great increase in difficulty levels from 2006 
on (Leskošek, Čuk, & Pajek, 2013; 
Thornton, 2010). To prevent the trend of 
“sacrificing execution for difficulty” 
(Leskošek et al., 2013), the FIG has been 
weighting performance quality in the open-
ended CoP since 2009. Particularly in 
WAG, as mentioned above, apart from the 
highest difficulties in a routine (except on 
the vault) that were reduced to 8 and a fall  
deducted by 1.0, the FIG added the 
evaluation of artistry on both the balance 
beam and the floor exercise to the new 
scoring system in the 2009 CoP, and refined 
it in the Rio and Tokyo cycles. As a result, 
the sport has seen a shift from difficulty to 
elegance and artistry since 2009, which is a 
drastic change at the institutional level (He 
et al., 2020).  
The new open-ended scoring system 
used to modify the balance between artistry 
and difficulty in scoring coupled with the 
adoption of the vaulting table intended to 
promote safety but unintentionally it 
increased the superiority of the vault over 
other WAG events. Although significant 
differences only existed between the vault 
and the floor exercise chiefly owing to 
much lower D-scores for the vault versus 
other three WAG events (particularly in 
comparison with uneven bars and balance 
beam) at the OG2008, the vault came to be 
dominant in terms of F-score mean among 
the WAG events ever since the 2012 
Olympics. We believe that there are two 
reasons for this: one is the D-score means 
for all events but the vault dropped sharply 
at the OG2012 because the number of 
difficulties counted in a routine decreased 
from 10 to 8, which rendered all WAG 
events more even in terms of difficulty 
value. Also, stricter deductions for 
execution and artistry carried out in the 
open-ended scoring system after OG2008, 
when coupled with the performance 
advantages of the new vault table, made the 
vault score higher than other events in 
WAG.    
It can be said that the interplay of the two 
big changes brought about what the 
sociologist Robert Merton would call 
“unanticipated consequences” (Merton, 
1936). The FIG worked to introduce a new 
vaulting table, ostensibly for safety reasons, 
but this equipment served to encourage 
greater height and force generated in the 
event, thus making the vault superior over 
the uneven bars, balance beam and floor 
exercise in the light of the “perfect 
performance” gymnasts can present. 
Furthermore, when the ceiling for the 
“perfect 10” was removed in 2006, the 
He J., de Oca M.J., Zhang L.: WHY THE VAULT BECAME SUPERIOR TO OTHER …             Vol. 14, Issue 2: 237 - 247 
 
Science of Gymnastics Journal                                246                           Science of Gymnastics Journal 
 
“perfect performance” the gymnast can 
assume on the vault was maximized by the 
new scoring philosophy, particularly when 
greater weight was attached to execution 
and artistry after OG2008. That is, where 
the FIG intended to address safety and 
fairness in gymnastics competitions, it 
unintentionally promoted the superiority of 
the vault over other events. Suffice to say, 
this unanticipated consequence may 
constitute the most important element (i.e., 
imbalance of disciplines) in modern 
women’s artistic gymnastics. 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
This study marks a tentative step 
towards explaining why the vault seems to 
stand out among WAG events. Our 
conclusion shows that the strength of vault 
scores resulted from the introduction of the 
new vaulting table in 2001 and the new 
open-ended CoP in 2006, as well as further 
modifications in the balance between 
artistry and difficulty since 2009. Although 
these two significant changes carried out by 
the FIG in the early 21st century aimed to 
improve safety of the vault and fairness of 
judging, the interplay of the two significant 
changes promoted the vault to become the 
most powerful event in women’s artistic 
gymnastics. Predictably, this unanticipated 
consequence may constitute the most 
important element (i.e., imbalance of 
disciplines) in the process of reification of 
key values (i.e., safety, artistry and 
difficulty) in modern women’s artistic 
gymnastics. Moreover, as the imbalance of 
disciplines will definitely impact a variety 
of other aspects of international gymnastics 
(e.g., talents selection and training, judging 
in competitions, strategies of competitors 
and national teams, to name a few), we 
suggest research regarding such issues 
should continue due to the rapid progress of 
the sport.  
 
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Corresponding author: 
 
Jun He 
Nanjing Normal University  
No. 1 Wenyuan Road Qixia district, 
Nanjing, Jiangsu, China 210023 
Tel.: +86 15261850615 
Fax: +86 (25)85891033 
E mail: hejun@njnu.edu.cn  
 
 
Article received: 14.2.2022 
Article accepted: 10.4.2022