Jade Carey’s second silver on vault at world gymnastics championships even better than first

STUTTGART, Germany — Jade Carey’s second silver medal on vault is even better than her first. 

Carey finished second to Simone Biles at the world gymnastics championships Saturday. She also won silver on vault in 2017. 

“This one feels a little more special to me,” she said. “Just because I had to miss out last year. I also got hurt last year, so vault was a little bit hard for me to get back. So I’m happy I was able to do it.”

Carey missed last year’s world championships because she’s trying to lock up her own spot for the Tokyo Olympics through the World Cups. If she finishes atop the World Cup standings on any event, she’s in on her own. Otherwise, she’ll have to go through the national championships and Olympic trials and hope she gets one of the four spots on the U.S. team. 

Carey currently leads the World Cup standings on both floor exercise and vault. She’ll compete at the World Cups again this season and, if she locks up her own spot, will have to decide in March whether to take it or go through U.S. qualifying. 

“That’s pretty tough. That’s hard,” said Brian Carey, Jade Carey’s coach and father. “We’ll just take it a day at a time like Jade said and cross that bridge when we get there. First, we have to finish out the series and try and secure that spot before we have some decisions to make.”

Though Carey had been on a U.S. world team before, there was no team competition in 2017. She really wanted to be part of that, and helped the American women win their fifth consecutive world title Tuesday night. 

“It was really special to her and important,” Brian Carey said. “She really wanted that team medal, so I’m glad she got a chance to do that.”

And now she has another medal to take home.

Carey competed last of the eight women in the final. Her first vault was a Cheng — a roundoff onto the takeoff board, a half-twist onto the table followed by a layout with 1 1/2 twists — and she landed it with only a slight hop. 

She scored a 15.166, second only to Biles’ scores for her two vaults. 

Her second vault was an Amanar — a roundoff onto the takeoff board, a back handspring onto the table followed by 2 1/2 twists — and she stepped all the way off the landing pad, a three-tenths deduction.

But her combined score was still enough to keep her ahead of Britain’s Ellie Downie. 

“I definitely scared myself a lot,” Carey said. “I knew as soon as I blocked that I was off, so I was really just trying to make it to my feet.” 

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