11 Female Gymnasts With Skills Named After Them

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are almost upon us. At the women's gymnastics competition, beginning on July 28, some athletes will be performing tried and true moves. Others might be throwing new skills that will one day bear their names.

To get a skill named after her, a gymnast must perform it at a world championship or Olympics. Each skill is rated on a scale from A (easiest) to J (hardest) [PDF]. We've gathered a few of the skills named after some of the sport's brightest stars below.

Olga Korbut // Balance Beam

Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut first performed a Korbut Flip on the balance beam—a backward somersault that ends with the gymnast straddling the beam—in the 1972 Olympics. You can see the skill at the 40-second mark in the video above. She also originated a second Korbut Flip for the uneven bars, but gymnasts are now banned from performing it because of the likelihood of injuries.

Simone Biles // Floor Exercise

American gymnast Simone Biles has lent her name to two floor exercise skills—appropriately named the Biles and the Biles 2. She first performed the Biles—a double layout with a 180-degree turn at the end—in 2013. That half-turn means she lands blind (she can't see the ground when she lands), which increases the skill’s difficulty. The Biles 2, a triple-twisting double-tucked backwards somersault, debuted in 2019. It is the most difficult skill on any apparatus in women's gymnastics and carries a J rating. Biles also has two vault skills and a balance beam dismount named after her.

Pauline Schaefer // Balance Beam

A regular sideways tucked salto (or flip in which your hands don't touch the ground) would not do for German gymnast Pauline Schaefer, who added a half twist to create her eponymous move in 2013 (you can see it at the 44-second mark in the video above); the skill was completed at the world championships and added to the Code of Points the following year.

Elise Ray // Uneven Bars

Ray, an American gymnast who competed at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000, actually has three uneven bars skills named after her. By far the most difficult is the dismount dubbed the Ray 3, a double layout with two full twists that earned a G rating.

Simona Amanar // Vault

This skill, which Romanian gymnast Simona Amanar performed at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, is a Yurchenko-style vault (a family of skills named after Soviet gymnast Natalia Yurchenko). This means that it starts with a round-off onto the springboard, followed by a back handspring onto the horse; Amanar broke the mold when she added a backward salto with two-and-a-half twists in the laid-out position. The vault is so difficult that, according to the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), “it carries a 6.3 point difficulty score, half a point higher than most other vaults in the code of points.” Though Amanar flubbed the landing on her eponymous move at the 2000 Summer Games, American gymnast McKayla Maroney performed a near-perfect one at the 2012 Games in London.

Betty Okino // Balance Beam

“A triple turn isn’t so hard,” you think. Well, try doing it on one leg on a 4-inch-wide balance beam, as American gymnast Betty Okino did at the 1991 world championships, and you’ll be singing a different tune. This isn't the only move Okino has named after her; there's also an uneven bars dismount skill that bears her name.

Marisa Dick // Balance Beam

The balance beam mount named for Marisa Dick, a gymnast for Trinidad and Tobago, has a diagonal approach followed by a “change leg leap to free cross split sit,” according to the International Gymnastics Federation. Basically: Jumping on the beam and landing in a clean split.

Cheng Fei // Vault

Another Yurchenko-style vault, this skill named for Chinese gymnast Cheng Fei—a three-time world champion in the event—incorporates a half-turn into the back handspring, then continues with a forward, laid-out salto with one and a half turns.

Silvia Hindorff // Uneven Bars

Hindorff, an East German gymnast, first performed this skill in the 1978 World Championships. It starts with the gymnast in a handstand on the high bar; she then performs a hip circle before releasing the bar; she flies over it in a straddle position before catching the bar again (this part of the move is either called a reverse hecht or a Tkatchev, named for Soviet gymnast Alexander Vasilyevich Tkachyov, who was the first to perform it in competition). You can see Dominique Dawes perform the E-rated skill at the 14-second mark in the video above.

Brenna Dowell // Floor Exercise

This move—a forward double pike somersault—is named for American gymnast Brenna Dowell, who first performed it in 2015. You can see her nail the skill, which has an F rating, at the 50-second mark in the video above.

Victoria Moors // Floor Exercise

The International Gymnastics Federation had to create the I rating for the Moors floor exercise skill in 2013. It was the most difficult move in all of women's gymnastics until 2019, when the J rating was introduced for the Biles 2. The Moors, named after Canadian gymnast Victoria Moors, is a backward double-twisting double layout. She also has an uneven bars dismount named after her.

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A version of this story was published in 2016; it has been updated for 2024.