Although for gymnastics experts and fans that was precisely what he achieved with a movement he made in the 80s when performing the horse vault or vault.
“I can only give credit to Simone Biles for not being afraid to try new things and to shake up the world with all her beautiful skills, especially with that vault,” Yurchenko tells BBC Mundo.
From the academy he founded in Chicago, United States, he tells us about the excitement he feels when he sees the evolution of something that was born from a love for gymnastics and a desire to innovate.
But also of an era and a generation of athletes who made history.
Innovation
The Soviet Union’s women’s gymnastics team was a powerhouse, winning eight Olympic gold medals between 1952 and 1980.
Vladislav Rastorotsky was a Russian coach who had among his pupils legends such as Lyudmila Turishcheva and Natalia Shaposhnikova.
Many of the athletes he trained brought the Soviet Union multiple medals in various international competitions.
But more than medals and titles there was something that defined Rastorotsky: he was an innovator.
Yurchenko, who was one of her students, testifies to this.
“We loved gymnastics. I was part of a group that liked to innovate, everyone was supposed to develop new skills. It was always like that.”
“It was about exploring what no one had done before.“That made it a very exciting, great time.”
Yurchenko does not remember exactly which day she first made the jump that bears her name.
“I think it was in 1981, when we started training him.”
“We thought it was a bit crazy when our coach suggested we try it, but it was an easy process and a lot of fun.”
Rastorotsky had the idea and his pupils began to practice doing somersaults on stacked mats.
Days later they would introduce the track and the table.
And as they practiced they realized that speed transformed the jump they made back, “which added more difficulty”.
It was jump after jump until Yurchenko perfected the technique and introduced it for the first time in a competition in 1982.
“Before Simone Biles made history, Natalia Yurchenko changed artistic gymnastics forever with a new entry in horse jumping,” says the International Olympic Committee website.
“Yurchenko is the creator of Yurchenko’s entry to the vaultin which the gymnast performs a round off on the springboard and then a back flip onto the table,” notes the International Gymnastics Federation.
The inspiration
Yurchenko was born in 1965 in the city of Norilsk, in SiberiaAt the age of 9 she started doing gymnastics.
Her inspirations included athletes such as Belarusian Olga Korbut, who competed for the Soviet Union at the 1972 Olympics.
He was one of the stars who dazzled in Munich.
There was also Romanian Nadia Comaneci, who on the uneven bars in Montreal 1976 obtained the first 10 in the history of the Olympic Games.
That was just one of the reasons that made her a legend.
“When we started watching on TV all those moves and tricks that made them stand out from the rest of the competitors, they became an influence on us,” says Yurchenko.
“Seeing what they were doing, everyone Coaches and gymnasts started to dream about that. We said: ‘I have to do this and that.’
“They showed us that more difficult movements could be done in a safe and exceptional way.”
Something magic
In her training, Yurchenko believes that ballet and trampoline were key elements “for explore new skills and new limits”.
“Our practice started on the trampoline. Then we developed the difficult acrobatic skills on the pit (sponge bucket pit)”.
“Every day we did more and more: double-double, double-triple, forward and backward. All those skills, we trained them every day to develop more air awareness.”
For her and her companions one thing seemed clear: the higher, the more exciting.
At the 1983 World Gymnastics Championships, Yurchenko was crowned all-around championthat is, she won the gold medal by adding her performance on the four apparatus: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and free hands or floor.
“When I won that title, it was very exciting.“, he notes.
But she explains to me that when she started doing gymnastics and when she decided to follow that path, she didn’t think “about how many medals she could win.”
“I got into gymnastics because I really enjoyed being in the gym, I enjoyed the process of learning new skills. It was magical for me.”
The medals she won gave her joy, and even more so because she won them doing what she liked. “I tried to be the best at what I did.”
Decades later
The Yurchenko vault has progressed a lot in height and in the time the athlete is in the air.
“It feels amazing because when we started making that leap, we made it for the future. It was developed so that there would be a larger second partto make it easier for the next generation of gymnasts to do more difficult movements.”
Simply put, you couldn’t make a great sequel like Biles does from any other input.
“It’s exciting to see that we have a person like Simone Biles who can actually bring to life something that we only dreamed of, she was able to make it a reality.”
In an interview with the International Olympic Committee website, published in 2021, Yurchenko spoke about the “Yurchenko double pike” -Yurchenko double jump- with which Biles made history that year.
“I dreamed of seeing it. It made me cry tears of joy because you create something and you hope that future generations will use it. I don’t think it could be better. It was incredible. I was amazed that we have Simone Biles, who can take us all to that level.”
In our conversation he tells me that he always felt “that he needed to do something.”
“Having been raised in a communist system, you are always motivated to do something for the people who come after you.”
“I feel like I accomplished exactly what I wanted to do in my life, to leave something behind for a future generation. It’s amazing.”
Your name
Yurchenko decided to emigrate to the United States, where he founded and runs the academy C.I.T.Y. Club Gymnastics.
He told BBC Mundo that when he arrived he realised that “everyone called it that: the Yurchenko jump” and it surprised him.
Remember that, for example, in training in his country they did the Tsukahara vault, in honor of the gymnast who first performed it: the Japanese Mitsuo Tsukahara.
“But I don’t remember her being called Yurchenko in my country, now that’s what she’s called everywhere. I think it was very practical and easy.”
“It makes me feel very good and grateful to have my name written in the points code and everyone calls it the Yurchenko jump.”
The Paris Olympics have already seen several spectacular jumps, including those that marked Biles’ triumphant Olympic return following her withdrawal from Tokyo 2020 for mental health reasons.
“We will probably never see gymnasts like her again. She is the one and only Simone Biles who breaks multiple records.”
And that makes “such an amazing jump.”
“We knew someone in the future would do it, what we didn’t know was if we would get to see it.”
Olympics
Yurchenko says she feels “great joy” watching the Paris Olympics.
“I’ve never been to one.”
The 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles were boycotted by the Soviet Union, after the United States had done the same four years earlier with the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
“After (Los Angeles) I never had the opportunity to go to the Olympics.”
By Seoul 1988, he had already retired.
She says she used to tell herself she was fine, that she had participated in other competitions, but as she got older that feeling changed.
“I kind of regret that my government never sent us to the Olympics because it is such an incredible experience.”
“It is a spectacle that represents what sport should be. That is why I am very happy with the Games and with all the athletes who participate and who make us excited when we watch them.”
She was not able to go to the Olympics, but her jump remains a regular participant.
What does it consist of
Elsa García, a Mexican athlete who won the Longines Award for Elegance at the 2009 London World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and who participated in the 2012 Olympics, explains to BBC Mundo that the vault consists of a 25-metre running track, a springboard, a table and mats where the gymnast will land.
The first thing the athlete does is run quickly towards the apparatus to gain momentum.
“The Yurchenko vault consists of a roundabout entrance with the hands on the protective mat and landing with both feet on the springboard with the back to the horse.”
The bounce on the bouncer makes the gymnast do a kind of flight, flybackwards with arms stretched upwards.
This movement causes both hands to touch the horse and, with that, the body is propelled forward and upward.
“From there, the rest of the jump that is made has a certain extra value,” he says.
The gymnast can follow the movement with back flips displaying different positions and turns.
For example, what is known as the Biles I is “a Yurchenko with a half twist” in which the second part has “an extended somersault with two twists.”
The so-called Biles II is “a vault with a Yurchenko entry” followed by “two somersaults in a square position.”
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