Somersault
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A somersault (also flip, heli, and in gymnastics salto) is an acrobatic exercise in which a person's body rotates 360° around a horizontal axis with the feet passing over the head.<ref name=USAGlos>Template:Cite web</ref> A somersault can be performed backwards, forwards or sideways and can be executed in the air or on the ground. When performed on the ground, it is typically called a roll.
Etymology
The word 'somersault' is derived from Old Provençal sobresaut (via Middle French sombresault) meaning "jump over", from sobre, "over" (from Latin supra-, as in supranational); and saut, "jump" (from Latin saltus, the same root as salient).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Types
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Body positions
Somersaults may be performed with different positions, including tucked, piked (bent at the hips), straddled, and layout (straight body).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Somersaults are often completed with twists.<ref name=scientific/>
Direction
Tumbling, a discipline of Trampoline Gymastics, does not require participants to combine both front and back elements, and most tumblers prefer back tumbling as it is easier to build momentum.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Arabian saltos begin backwards, continue with a half twist to forwards, and end with one or more saltos forwards. They can be trained by beginning with an Arabian dive roll and adding a front salto to it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They are counted as front tumbling in women's artistic gymnastics<ref>WAG COP 2022-2024 Section 7 Page 1</ref> and back tumbling in men's artistic gymnastics.<ref>MAG COP 2022-2024, p. 39</ref>
Multiple rotations
By 2003, the tucked double back salto had become common in women's gymnastics.<ref name=scientific>Template:Cite book</ref> The triple back salto exists in men's gymnastics but was rarely competed until 2017.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2019, American gymnast Simone Biles was the first woman to complete a back triple double: two saltos backwards with three twists in a tucked position on the floor.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The skill was first performed four decades (1964) earlier in Trampoline Gymnastics – where the skill is named a "miller", after its creator Wayne Miller. Subsequent skills have since been coined: "miller plus" (or "killer")—double somersault with four twists throughout—and "miller plus plus" (or "thriller")—double somersault with five twists throughout. <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See also
- Aerial cartwheel
- Cartwheel (gymnastics)
- Roll (gymnastics)
- Trampolining
- Tumbling
- Parkour
- Handspring
- Diving
- Tumble turn