Croatian Gymnast Perfectly Executes Most Simple Vault in Olympic History

Ana Derek is a 17-year old gymnast from Croatia. This is her first Olympics so it’s understandable that she is a bit nervous. On Monday night, she messed up her steps on the vault and ended up gracefully dismounting as if that was totally what she meant to do, right down to sticking the landing and smiling to the crowd.

Based on some foreign language sites (here and here), it sounds like Derek’s bad vault counted, which sucks. Hopefully, she keeps her head up and returns in 2020. If she needs inspiration, she can look to Oksana Chusovitina, the 41-year old gymnast from Uzbekista who competed in her vault rotation. 21 is still very young. Only a few people win medals, but even fewer look cool not winning medals.