Simone Biles’ most famous move will now just be the wind beneath her wings.
The gymnast revealed that she is officially retiring her famous Yurchenko Double Pike, which is considered one of the hardest moves in gymnastics and also helped Simone win gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Simone shared the news on Instagram Sep. 2, writing, “rest in peace yurchenko double pike,” alongside a heart hands emoji and photos of her posing in all-white atop a vault table—which slightly resembles a coffin—surrounded by white flowers. She also posted the photo to her Instagram Stories, cementing the move’s status as dearly departed with three headstone emojis.
And fans were delighted by the 27-year-old’s ode to her famous move, with one commenting, “OMG you just threw a funeral/eulogized your vault. I am deceased.”
Another added, “She said ‘i hope yall saw that bc i will NOT be doing it again!!'”
And one user joked, “Girl you killed it. Literally.”
Yurchenko-style vaults—named for former gymnast Natalia Yurchenko—are common among gymnasts who often perform the moves with one flip. But Simone took it a step further by adding a second flip, making it the Yurchenko Double Pike, also dubbed the Biles II, a move that consists of a roundoff onto the springboard, followed by a back handspring onto the vault. She made history in May 2021 when she became the first woman to land the move during a competition.
And as the Olympian—who wed Jonathan Owens in April 2023— previously discussed, she felt more comfortable performing the move at during 2020 Tokyo Olympics season, especially because she had an extra year to practice due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
“Before it was just kind of working on that vault for my block, for my other vaults,” she told People in 2021. “And then we got a little bit more serious. I was like, ‘Okay, I think I can compete this.’ And then that’s where it landed us to last week and me competing it in competition.”
And after she landed the move for the first time at the U.S. Classic that May, she “felt a hundred percent confident in myself that I could do it safely and land it” during the Olympics.
“[I knew] it was going to be fine because in training I had done it so many times,” she continued. “I do it every other day. And for the last couple of months, shoot, I would say like four months we’ve done on competition surface. So I felt pretty confident.”
And the move went out with a bang at the 2024 Olympics in Paris—where she took home three gold medals and one silver, making her the most decorated gymnast of all time.
Keep reading to see all the times that Simone proved she is the GOAT.
Simone Biles first stunned the world during her participation in the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Belgium.
There, she qualified first in the all-around, second to the vault final, sixth to the uneven bars final, fifth to the balance beam final and first to the floor final, which made her the first American gymnast to qualify to the all-around and all four event finals since 1991. At just 16 years old, Biles became the first Black and seventh American woman to win the world all-around title.
Believe or not, the young athlete has four (!) gymnastic moves named after her.
Among them is the double layout with a half twist, which the sports star debuted in her floor routine during the podium training for the 2013 U.S. Classic. Eight years after London Phillips completed it domestically in 2005, Biles was able to successfully nail the skill at the 2013 World Championships, earning the tribute.
Biles once again proved she was a force to be reckoned with during the 2015 U.S. National Championships by securing her third all-around national title, becoming only the second woman ever to do so, 23 years after athlete Kim Zmeska.
Also in 2015, during the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Biles ended her performance with an impressive final score of 60.399.
With that victory, she became the first woman to win three consecutive all-around titles in World Gymnastics Championships history, bringing her total gold medal count to 10 at the time—also the most for any woman in World Championships history.
