Swiss Giulia Steingruber To Debut A Not Yet In CoP Vault At The Upcoming European Championships

Photo by Silvia Vatteroni A new difficult vault might be added to the CoP this year.  Coach Zoltan Jordanov said in a lengthy intervi...

Photo by Silvia Vatteroni

A new difficult vault might be added to the CoP this year. 

Coach Zoltan Jordanov said in a lengthy interview with nzz.ch that his gymnast Giula Steingruber might debut the handspring to double twisting layout vault at the upcoming European championships which will be held between June 1 and 5 in the gymnast's native country.

According to him, Giulia is anxious on competing the vault and is having difficulty with the vault's blind landing. However if successfully competed at the European championships, she will execute it in Rio.

Senior gymnasts have to successfully compete their skill at either Worlds or Olympics to have it named after them. Steingruber has a dismount on balance beam named after her, a gainer layout salto with full twist from end of beam which is rated an E.

A handspring to 1.5 twisting layout is of 6.2 D score. The soon to be Steingrber's vault might receive a rating equal to Cheng (6.4).

Uzbekistan's Oksana Chusovitina posted a video of herself training the vault last December. If both gymnasts submitted and successfully performed it in Rio, it will be added to the CoP without bearing the name of either gymnasts.

Jordanov expects the 22 year old gymnast to finish in the first six places at Rio's all around competition as well as make vault and floor exercise finals. While at the European championships, she has the potential to win a medal on floor, vault and balance beam.

Unfortunately, Jordanov, who also coached European champion Ariella Kaeslin of Switzerland and legendary British gymnast Beth Tweddle, will have to bid farewell to Steingruber since his contract was not renewed, which he has expressed his sadness of as he believes that she has not yet peaked.

He also added that Steingruber is a better gymnast than Kaeslin and Tweddle were.

Last year, the Swiss gymnast became her country's first female gymnast to win an all around European gold medal.

Written by Gigi Farid