Tsukahara (vault)

The Tsukahara can refer to a specific vault and a family of vaults in artistic gymnastics. The first Tsukahara vault was performed by (and named after) Mitsuo Tsukahara in 1972.

A Tsukahara vault consists of a half turn off the springboard onto the vault table, then a push backwards, usually into a back salto or layout.^[1]

In Japanese, this technique is known as a "Moonsault".^[2]

Any vault that has a handspring with 1/4 - 1/2 turn onto the vault table into a salto backwards is classified as a Tsukahara vault. Some variations on the Tsukahara vaults include:

• Kim - Tsukahara tucked or stretched with full twist (360°) off
• Zamolodchikova - Tsukahara stretched with a 2/1 turn (720°) off
• Phelps - a half turn onto the vault table, followed by a half turn off and into a front layout.