Such a beautiful little gymnast. It is such a shame that a simple vault timer caused a life shattering injury. I'm really glad that the design of that event has been changed to the vaulting table instead of the old "horse" design. It was so dangerous, especially when performing the yurechenko style entry vaults. I can remember training, back in the early 90's, and my coach used to always say," do not throw your head back and look at your hands when you block, or you will end up going underneath the horse!" That always stuck with me, and I was always scared to death of vaulting after that. I hated It!
For sure the vaulting table is so much safer and it’s for the benefit of the sport, especially for the Yurchenko vaults. In the early ‘90’s, the FIG also changes the rules to mandate a U shaped safety mat that goes around the springboard. Another common mistake with the Yurchenko vaults would be gymnasts getting their approach crooked and partially or totally missing their feet in the board, which obviously would cause an injury. That’s how a young lady name Julissa Gomez was paralyzed and later died. The mat helps protect that. All that said, Sang’s injury didn’t have anything to do with the vaulting design. She didn’t even do a Yurchenko vault, but rather a handspring style, which is considerably less dangerous. Her accident was truly a freak accident, just caused by having a freak problem while she was warming up for a vault and she crash landed on her head. So tragic.
Lovely routine! God bless!
Beautiful little gymnast
She was cute! Loved her energy!
Such a beautiful little gymnast. It is such a shame that a simple vault timer caused a life shattering injury. I'm really glad that the design of that event has been changed to the vaulting table instead of the old "horse" design. It was so dangerous, especially when performing the yurechenko style entry vaults. I can remember training, back in the early 90's, and my coach used to always say," do not throw your head back and look at your hands when you block, or you will end up going underneath the horse!" That always stuck with me, and I was always scared to death of vaulting after that. I hated It!
For sure the vaulting table is so much safer and it’s for the benefit of the sport, especially for the Yurchenko vaults. In the early ‘90’s, the FIG also changes the rules to mandate a U shaped safety mat that goes around the springboard. Another common mistake with the Yurchenko vaults would be gymnasts getting their approach crooked and partially or totally missing their feet in the board, which obviously would cause an injury. That’s how a young lady name Julissa Gomez was paralyzed and later died. The mat helps protect that.
All that said, Sang’s injury didn’t have anything to do with the vaulting design. She didn’t even do a Yurchenko vault, but rather a handspring style, which is considerably less dangerous. Her accident was truly a freak accident, just caused by having a freak problem while she was warming up for a vault and she crash landed on her head. So tragic.
What’s super amazing about her is, she now is married with child and is aspiring to go to the Olympics in table tennis!
oh she would have been good in Sydney.. Double layout at 14 years old? Her injury was such a tragedy
I loved her :(