McKayla Maroney Vault Preview For 2013 World Gymnastic Championships: The Most Difficult Vaults By Her Competitors, And Can She Measure Up?

McKayla Maroney is anticipated to compete at the 2013 World Gymnastics Championships, and one marquee moment for will be the vault event final.

So far, a stack of gymnast names have come up in who could compete for the vault title, and McKayla Maroney is certainly near or at the top. But how are her competitors doing, and what are their vaults?

One event that showed off the daring capabilities of female vaulters is the 2013 European Gymnastic Championships, and three names rival that of McKayla Maroney.

Giulia Steingruber, Lairsa Iordache, and Maria Paseka are all expected to compete at the Worlds, and all three competed at the vault final earlier this year. Giulia Steingruber is the current European vaulting champion.

Check out the European Gymnastic Championships vault final below:

Another name that is slated to come back is North Korean vaulter Hong Un-Jong. While McKayla Maroney competed at the 2012 Olympics, Jong was noticeably absent after winning the 2008 gold medal for vault.

She is slowly making a comeback, after recently winning the gold medal at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, tied with Russian gymnast Ksenia Afanasyeva.

And speaking of Afanasyeva, this Russian floor and vault phenom will also post a threat to McKayla Maroney, with her very own Amanar vault.

Currently, most of the top vault gymansts have an Amanar as their first vault, so it is the second vault that will determine the potential difficulty value of their vaulting program overall.

Here is a very helpful video showing some of the top gymnasts expected to compete in vault at the 2013 World Gymnastics Championships this month and their respective programs.

As you can see, McKayla Maroney, with her Amanar and "Mustafina" vault, still remains near the top. Whether any of these gymnasts upgrades is another question.

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world news
gymnastics
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