Handspring Vaults Explained

Handspring vaults are the most straightforward entry family: the gymnast runs straight at the table, takes off from the springboard facing forwards, and goes over the table in a front handspring.

How the entry works

After the run-up, the gymnast takes off from the springboard with both feet, reaches forward and places both hands on the table, and rotates forward over the hands — the “first flight” onto the table and the “support” phase. From the table she or he pushes away into the second flight, which may be a simple handspring landing, a twist, or one or more saltos.

That forward take-off is what separates this family from round-off entry vaults, where the gymnast arrives at the springboard backwards. The Tsukahara also starts with a handspring, but turns a quarter or half onto the table and finishes with a salto backward, so the Code treats it as a separate group.

From simplest to hardest

The plain front handspring is the joint lowest-valued vault in both Codes: 1.60 in the 2025–2028 WAG Code of Points and 1.2 in the 2025–2028 MAG Code of Points. Everything else in the family is built by adding to it. Some women’s examples from the 2025–2028 WAG Code:

Adding a salto more than doubles the plain handspring’s value, and adding a second salto — the Produnova — puts it near the very top of the table.

How the Codes group them

The two Codes organise handspring vaults slightly differently:

• Women (WAG): group 1 covers vaults without a salto — the handspring with or without twists, plus related vaults such as the Yamashita and the Korbut (a handspring with a full turn on and a full turn off, worth 3.60). Group 2 covers handspring entries followed by a salto forward or backward.
• Men (MAG): group 1 covers handspring entries with a single salto and complex twists, including the Cuervo family. Group 2 covers handspring salto vaults with or without simple twists and double saltos forward — including the Roche, the Dragulescu and the Blanik.

In both Codes, the group number is the first digit of the vault’s number. See vault numbers and groups for how the numbering works, and women’s vault and men’s vault for how vault is judged.