Mountain Ridge High School alum Jade Carey claims Olympic bronze medal in vault for Team USA

Pulling off a Cheng and a double-twisting Yurchenko, she has won her third Olympic medal of her career. The Oregon State product claimed gold in the team all-around this past Tuesday and she was the champion in the floor exercise at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. A “Cheng” is a half-turn on the vaulting table before a 1.5 twist up in the air. A “Yurchenko,” on the other hand, is to round off onto the takeoff board up to a back handspring on the vaulting table and land on the floor.

Recognized as one of the greatest gymnasts of this generation, Carey’s American teammate Biles took home the gold after she successfully landed the extremely difficult Yurchenko double pike to earn a 15.700 on her first fault and landed a Cheng which gave her a 14.900 in the second, netting her an average of 15.300. Since she was able to be the first woman to perform the Yurchenko double pike correctly, it has since been named the “Biles II.”

Biles’ performance overwhelmingly led over the rest of her competition, with Carey ending in third and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade taking home silver. The Tokyo 2020 vault champion Andrade recorded a 14.966 average between her two vaults, having the closest overall score to Biles.

Brushing off the woeful performance she had in the women’s gymnastics qualifiers, Carey bounced back and showed that she was unfazed by what transpired before winning bronze. In qualifying, Carey made multiple mistakes and missed landings during her run ultimately which ultimately cost her significant scoring.

At the time of reporting, the United States as a country leads all nations in total Olympic medals, 51. For the gold medal count, Team USA has 11 trailing and is trailing Australia and the host country France with 12. China leads every country in golds with 16.