Sunisa Lee, the defending Olympic all-around gold medalist and uneven bars bronze medalist, might try a brand new talent on the 2024 Paris Video games.
The brand new aspect in her uneven bars routine is a launch transfer during which a gymnast does a entrance flip and a full twist within the structure place. Lee is searching for to be the primary girl ever to finish this transfer in worldwide competitors.
If she is ready to do it on the Video games, the talent — generally often known as a full-twisting Jaeger — can be christened “The Lee,” the primary talent to be named after her within the sport’s Code of Factors. A handful of expertise are typically named every year, however solely a really small variety of gymnasts will ever earn the excellence of a namesake.
“The Lee” can be one of the crucial troublesome components in girls’s uneven bars. Let’s take a better have a look at how she performs the transfer.
Every talent within the uneven bars occasion has a letter worth indicating problem, beginning with A and going by means of G, although Lee’s new talent has the potential to turn into an H.
Jaegers, named for Bernd Jäger, check with a household of strikes that include a 360-degree swing with a straight physique on the excessive bar and a launch right into a entrance flip earlier than catching the excessive bar once more. They are often straddled (D), piked (D) or laid out (F).
The structure Jaeger is named a Cappuccitti (named for Stephanie Cappuccitti) and isn’t tried in competitors due to the problem of catching the bar. Lee’s transfer additional will increase the problem by including a full twist.
Word: The Cappuccitti was carried out by Luo Rui. The total-twisting Jaeger was carried out by Sunisa Lee.
Imagery by Worldwide Gymnastics Federation (Rui); The New York Instances (Lee)
What makes Lee’s transfer significantly putting is that she isn’t making a variation on a distinct launch talent referred to as a Tkatchev, the route adopted by most uneven bars innovators lately.
Within the authentic model — named for the Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Tkatchev — the gymnast swings across the excessive bar with a straight physique, releases it close to the apex of the swing, flies backward over the bar with legs straddled, and rotates the higher physique ahead to catch the bar once more.
Word: Carried out by Gabby Douglas.
U.S.A. Gymnastics
The swing may be carried out with 5 physique positions, the flight may be carried out with three physique positions, and it is usually potential to do a half-twist within the air. This implies there are at the least 30 permutations of the identical root talent.
Six new Tkatchev variants have been named within the final 4 years alone.
Whereas there are nonetheless some up for grabs, Lee selected to go a distinct route. It has been 18 years since anybody innovated on the Jaeger base. The Chinese language gymnast Li Ya was the final, introducing a Jaeger with a half twist in 2006.
In January, Lee posted movies on Instagram displaying her doing the brand new talent throughout a coaching session. It was an indication that she was getting again in kind after going through critical well being points for a lot of final yr.
Lee was recognized with an incurable kidney illness, which brought on extreme swelling in her face, arms and legs, making it not possible to compete.
On her return to elite competitors, she tried the brand new talent on the Winter Cup in February however missed the aspect throughout her bars routine and fell.
Due to how troublesome and dangerous the talent is, it isn’t sure whether or not Lee will try it with a medal on the road. However the Olympics in Paris will provide an opportunity to have the transfer named after her and to go away an indelible mark on the game.
