The handspring double salto forward tucked, known as a Produnova in women's artistic gymnastics and a Roche in men's artistic gymnastics,[1][2] is a vault consisting of a front handspring onto the vaulting horse and two front somersaults in a tucked position off it.
The first person to complete the vault was Cuban gymnast Jorge Roche in 1980.[1]
23 Roche vaults were performed during the 2000 Summer Olympics.[3]
By 2010, male gymnasts had developed more difficult variations by performing it piked or with twists.[4]
Under the 2017–2020 Code of Points (artistic gymnastics) for WAG, the vault has a D-score of 6.4,[5] and is considered one of the hardest vaults ever performed in women's artistic gymnastics.[6] It currently ties for the highest D-score on this apparatus with the Biles vault. It is named after Yelena Produnova of Russia, who was the first woman to complete it successfully in 1999.[7] Produnova's coach, Leonid Arkayev, bet her that she could not perform the vault.[1] The D-score of the Produnova has been slowly reduced over the quads from 7.1 (2009–2012) to 7.0 (2013–2016) and now 6.4 (2017–2020).
The vault is dangerous because a gymnast could break her neck if she fell short of two rotations. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina attempted the Produnova but fell.[8] The vault is termed the "vault of death" due to its high level of difficulty and likelihood of injury.[9][10][11] Asked why she did not perform the vault, Simone Biles stated, "I’m not trying to die."[8]