Smooth Skills Episode 2
Many of you may know that three Chinese gymnasts performed the “Mo salto” (Gaylord I) on women’s bars back in the mid-1990’s: Mo Huilan, Meng Fei, and Bi Wenjing. Did you know this little-known gymnast could do it as well – about ten years later?
Zhang Yufei Mo salto!
This one was in training, and I don’t know if she ever actually competed it or not. She certainly did it very well…in fact I’d say it was higher than all three of her predecessors! And I love the little full turn out of it.
Here’s a look at the Mo saltos done by these other three Chinese gymnasts back in 1994-1996, including the competition where the skill was first named for Mo Huilan:
Mo Huilan Bars 1994 Worlds
Meng Fei Bars 1995 Visa Challenge
Bi Wenjing Bars 1996 Olympics Event Finals
That small break in the handstand from Bi was what kept her from being the Olympic champion on this event…she ended up tying for the silver with American Amy Chow. So whose Mo salto do you think was the best?
Zhang Yufei was actually an incredible all-around gymnast, but the only major world event in which she competed was the 2005 worlds:
Zhang Yufei FX 2005 World Championships
We don’t see choreography like that from the Chinese too often! Pretty cool stuff. She did make the event finals here on floor by placing 7th in prelims, but she ended up dropping out of the competition in both the all-around and event finals (she was 11th all-around in prelims as well). I’m guessing she may have been injured on vault because she scored extremely low there…anyone know?
She wasn’t too bad on vault either:
Zhang Yufei Vault 2005 Chinese Nationals
Nice double full! At that time Cheng Fei was about the only good vaulter for the Chinese, so even having a double full was a rarity for them.
Zhang Yufei Beam 2005 Chinese National Games
WOW! What a stacked routine! Two major tumbling sequences, and what a unique one-arm back handspring layout to one-arm back handspring series. That skill after the front aerial was a unique one that a few Chinese gymnasts began doing around 2003…it’s not a Rulfova because she really twists halfway one way and halfway the other – but still cool-looking! Just a huge variety of skills here and everything was beautifully done.
Zhang Yufei Bars 2003
There’s a look at all the other stuff she could do on bars…love the Yaeger to Pak salto! It’s amazing how we NEVER see this combination anymore (except from He Kexin), and I don’t understand why. Everyone in the world is doing these Pak saltos from a cast handstand nowadays, and I’m sick of seeing it! So many Chinese gymnasts in particular are doing these huge Yaegers but for some strange reason don’t do the Pak salto immediately out of it – this reminds us how much better this looks when done connected.
Does anyone know what happened to this amazing gymnast?