Yang Hak-seon ( ; born 6 December 1992) is a South Korean

artistic gymnast Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different types of apparatus. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which assigns the '' Code of Points'' used ...

who specialises in the vault. He is the first

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

gymnast Gymnastics is a group of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, sh ...

to win an Olympic gold medal.

Personal life

According to his Olympic profile, Yang started his gymnastics career at the age of 9, following his brother's footsteps. Yang is currently attending the Korea National Sport University. Yang's parents are Yang Gwan-gwon and Ki Suk-hyang. Their impoverished family previously lived in one of

Gwangju Gwangju (; ), formerly romanized as Kwangju, is South Korea's list of cities in South Korea, sixth-largest metropolis. It is a designated Special cities of South Korea, metropolitan city under the direct control of the central government's Home ...

's shantytowns, before relocating to

North Jeolla Province North Jeolla Province, officially Jeonbuk State (), is a Special Self-governing Province of South Korea in the Honam region in the southwest of the Korean Peninsula. Jeonbuk borders the provinces of South Chungcheong to the north, North Gyeo ...

's Gochang, in South Korea's countryside, in 2010, after his father, a construction worker, suffered from serious injuries. His family currently lives in a makeshift converted greenhouse constructed from PVC pipes. After Yang's father lost his job, Yang supported the family with a modest income from the Korea Gymnastic Association. Yang's coach Cho Sung-doe admitted that he had been unaware of the family's precarious financial situation before Yang won the gold medal. Yang also competed on the Korean survivor game show '' Physical: 100'' by Netflix in 2023.

Career

Yang placed fourth and just missed medaling in the individual vault final at the 2010 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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, and would later become vault champion at the 2010

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and then 2011 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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. In 2012, he became the first Korean gymnast to win Olympic gold in gymnastics, winning the vault competition in

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. In 2013, he went on to win gold in vault at the

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. He is famous in the gymnastics world for performing one of the five hardest vaults in the world, the ''Yang Hak Seon'', which is a front handspring on and into three twists off in a layout position. It was unveiled in the individual vault final at the 2011 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, and initially carried the highest ever difficulty score (D-score) of 7.4 in men's vault at the time under the 2009–2012 Code of Points ( CoP). The difficulty value of the ''Yang Hak Seon'' has been adjusted at the beginning of subsequent quads since, initially down to 6.4 under the 2012–2016 CoP and now further to 6.0 under the current 2017–2020 CoP. The

International Gymnastics Federation The International Gymnastics Federation ( French: ''Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique'', abbr. FIG) is the body governing competition in all disciplines of gymnastics. Its headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded on 23 ...

( FIG) regularly reassesses and adjusts D-scores (typically down) due to the steady advancement of general skill levels over time in gymnastics, especially on vault because of its D-scores being assigned numeric values instead of letter representations like with all other apparatuses—vault is the only apparatus in gymnastics to have that simply due to the nature of the apparatus. Yang is also said to be working on a difficult second vault but with a sideways entry. Yang was a reigning world champion, having won gold in vault at both the 2011 Worlds and 2013 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

and

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respectively. However, at the 2014 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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, he fell on both of his vaults—the first for which it was announced in

that he was widely expected but failed to receive naming credit for a brand new top then 6.4 difficulty vault, initially dubbed the ''Yang Hak Seon 2'', or a straight Tsukahara with 3½ twist—failing to defend his title and finished in seventh place with a final average combined score of 14.416 after qualifying in first place. Yang had earlier submitted to possibly attempt this new vault at the 2013 Worlds as well but chose not to compete it in any stage of the individual vault apparatus event. Ri Se Gwang of

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won the gold medal with two top then 6.4 difficulty vaults that were both named after him, the ''Ri Se Gwang'' (full-twisting double Tsukahara) and ''Ri Se Gwang 2'' (double front piked with ½ twist), and outscored Yang by exactly one full point (15.416). He was similarly unable to defend his Olympic title at the

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due to injury. At the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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, Yang had "qualified" (Q) in first place for the vault event final but pulled out after that because he had sustained a hamstring injury during qualifications. At the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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, Yang had qualified for the individual vault event final in first place, but finished eighth after falling out of the first vault—his own the ''Yang Hak Seon'' on vault, or front handspring (layout) triple twist—as well as incurring a 0.300 penalty for stepping out-of-bounds because of that. Yang's training and preparation for the

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, were adjusted for his performance to peak accordingly for one year due to 2019–20

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. At the Olympics, he failed to qualify automatically for the individual event finals on vault after placing ninth in qualifying due to the poor execution and penalty point received in his second vault. He became the first reserve for the finals but ending up not competing. In the 2021 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in

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, Yang qualified for the individual vault apparatus finals in a tie for the highest average combined score of 14.833 with but ranked second to Nazar Chepurnyi of

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after the tie-breaking procedure was applied. However, Yang completed the event in fifth place after some weak execution on his second vault once again.

Competitive history

Eponymous skills

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Hak-Seon Living people 1992 births South Korean male artistic gymnasts Olympic gymnasts for South Korea Gymnasts at the 2012 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for South Korea Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships Olympic medalists in gymnastics Contestants on Japanese game shows Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Asian Games medalists in gymnastics Gymnasts at the 2010 Asian Games Gymnasts at the 2014 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for South Korea Asian Games silver medalists for South Korea Asian Games bronze medalists for South Korea Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Medalists at the 2014 Asian Games Summer World University Games medalists in gymnastics FISU World University Games gold medalists for South Korea FISU World University Games silver medalists for South Korea South Korean Buddhists Competitors at the 2013 Summer Universiade Medalists at the 2015 Summer Universiade Originators of elements in artistic gymnastics Gymnasts at the 2020 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Gwangju 21st-century South Korean sportsmen