Born to Vault Trivia Quiz

Answer: Simone Biles

Simone Biles was part of the "Final Five" USA Women's Gymnastics Team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The team was so named because it was the last one to be coached by the famous Martha Karolyi and because the 2016 Olympics were the last to feature teams of five gymnasts, as the number was dropped to four for the 2020 Games. Going into the 2016 Olympics, Biles was dubbed "The Greatest of All-Time" by commentators because she had won gold medals in the three consecutive individual all-around World Championships from 2013-2015. It should be noted that the title "Greatest of All Time" is controversial and has been used to refer to other gymnasts in the past, including Nadia Comaneci.

At the 2016 Games she won five gold medals. It was widely expected she would win six golds but she faltered on the balance beam during that apparatus final and earned the bronze.

Answer: Aliya Mustafina

Aliya Mustafina won four medals in the London Olympics, which was more than any other athlete except for swimmers. One of those medals was controversial - her bronze in the individual all-around. Mustafina and American gymnast Aly Raisman had tied for the bronze when the competition was over. The tie breaker dropped the lowest score and Mustafina was awarded the bronze. This was controversial because Mustafina had performed extremely poorly on the uneven bars and received a low score that was dropped. Raisman's supporters claimed that the American was being punished for not having a low-scoring routine.

Mustafina's signature apparatus was considered, ironically, to be the uneven bars and she had skills named after her on that apparatus and in the floor exercise.

Answer: Yang Tae-young

Yang Tae-young received an honorary gold medal from South Korea after winning bronze in the individual all-around at the 2004 Athens Olympics. His parallel bar routine generated controversy. He was given a lower starting score than he should have after the judges mistook part of his routine for something simpler. As a result, Yang Tae-young received the bronze when he would have received the gold if his starting score had been correct.

However, the South Korean team waited too long to protest the score, well after the competition had ended. The gold medal winner was Paul Hamm of the United States and the U.S. Olympic Committee suggested that Yang Tae-young should be given a second gold medal. Ultimately, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against Yang Tae-young.

After the 2004 Olympics, the gymnastics scoring system was overhauled so that a 10 was no longer a perfect score. The maximum score possible became whatever a gymnast's degree of difficulty was for a given routine. The degree of difficulty is determined by the skills and movements in the routine. Deductions are then taken from the degree of difficulty score. Essentially, this means that instead of grading a routine on the typical scale of 0-10 based on how well a gymnast performed a routine (with penalties if a routine did not meet certain requirements), points can only be deducted from a gymnast's starting score. Also, the rules for challenging a score were simplified.

Much of these changes stemmed from Yang Tae-young's controversy but there were other scoring controversies at the 2004 Olympics and at other international competitions that prompted the changes as well.

Answer: Kohei Uchimura

Uchimura won back to back Olympic gold medals in the men's individual all-around in 2012 and 2016 and was the first to do so since his fellow Japanese gymnast Sawao Kato did so in 1968 and 1972. He also won gold medals in the individual all-around at the World Championships from 2009-2015.

He is known for his difficult routines, which allow him to rack up massive points even with a few mistakes, as was the case at the 2012 Olympics.

Answer: Nadia Comaneci

Less well remembered, however, is that Comaneci received six perfect tens for various routines at the 1976 Games. She was that year's women's individual all-around gold medalist and her Romanian team won silver in that year's team all-around competition. In total, she won three gold medals in Montreal and two more in 1980 at Moscow.

Nadia Comaneci defected to the U.S. in 1989, eight years after her coaches, the Karolyis had done so. Comaneci's life was strictly monitored after the Karolyis defected because Romania did not want its star gymnast to leave and become an American. Her travel was strictly limited to other Communist countries until she escaped Romania via Hungary with the help of Constantin Panait, a relatively famous human smuggler who helped many escape from behind the Iron Curtain.

Answer: Bart Conner

Bart Conner became well-known during the 1984 Games in Los Angeles when he was part of the gold-medal winning men's team. He also won the gold on the parallel bars with his famous "Conner Spin" routine. His marriage to Nadia Comaneci garnered international headlines because the two married in Bucharest, Romania after that country was freed from Communist rule.

Answer: Nastia Liukin

Going into the 2008 Olympics, many commentators openly stated that Liukin's teammate, Shawn Johnson, was the favorite to win the individual all-around. Liukin's win in that event to Johnson's silver was seen as something of an upset. She defeated Johnson by 0.6 points. Liukin was a favorite for the 2012 Olympics but performed poorly at the U.S. Olympic Trials and failed to make the team. She then retired.

Liukin's parents, Valeri Liukin and Anna Kotchneva, were Soviet gymnasts. Valeri won two gold and two silver medals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Anna was a rhythmic gymnast. The Liukins moved to the United States in 1992 after the Soviet Union dissolved.

Answer: Kerri Strug

The Magnificent Seven is the nicnkname of the 1996 gold-medal winning U.S. Women's Gymnastics Team. Going into the last apparatus, the United States had a narrow lead over Russia. The U.S. competed on the vault while Russia was on the floor exercise. The penultimate vaulter, Dominique Moceanu, needed a 9.4 to secure the gold for the USA in the event Russian athletes still to go scored 10s. However, she only scored a 9.2 after falling on both of her turns.

How this ended is sometimes distorted in the media. The 9.2 was enough to secure the gold medal because a Russian athlete faltered and the remaining Russian gymnast could not possibly score enough points to win. However Team USA did not know that at the time. Strug also fell on her first vault and injured her ankle in the process. She almost did not perform the second vault but Bela Karolyi convinced her to give it another try and she stuck the landing.

It is commonly stated that Strug had to vault a second time to win the gold medal, but this is not true as stated above. Strug had to vault the second time in order to qualify for the individual all-around. She did qualify for that competition but did not compete in it because of her ankle injury. Bela Karolyi had to carry her to the podium so she could receive her gold medal. That scene is one of the most iconic in American Olympic history.

Answer: Paul Hamm

Paul Hamm was the first American male gymnast to win gold in the individual all-around at both an Olympic Games and a World Championship. At the 2004 Games, he also won the silver as part of the U.S. men's team and on the high bar apparatus. His brother, Morgan, was part of the 2004 silver-winning team.

Hamm's win was controversial due to an alleged starting score error effecting Yang Tae-young of South Korea who was awarded the bronze. Yang Tae-young and South Korea claimed that his starting score was one-tenth lower than it should have been on the parallel bars but he waited too long to protest the score. Hamm retained his gold medal.

Answer: Danell Leyva

Leyva's mother defected with her son from Cuba to Miami in 1992 where she ran a gym. Leyva is known for his parallel bars routine, having won medals in many different championships. He won the bronze in the men's 2012 individual all-around at the Olympic Games. Four years later, he won a silver in the parallel bars and the horizontal bar.

He is also known for wrapping himself up in his lucky towel after his routines.