Ri Se-gwang (Korean: 리세광; born January 21, 1985) is a retired North Koreanartistic gymnast,[1] representing the April 25 Sports Club.[2] He is often considered a specialist on vault apparatus in the sport of men’s artistic gymnastics (MAG).
In 2009, Ri successfully performed an extremely difficult new vault, a Tsukahara (1/4 entry in the first flight) on the vaulting table, followed by a full twisting double backwards salto in tuck position.[3] The new vault is named after Ri.[2] The vault, now officially named the Ri Se Gwang, was valued a difficulty score of 7.2 and the second highest difficulty value in the world, with Yang Hak Seon's vault the Yang Hak Seon (front handspring triple twist) being the most difficult with a 7.4 start value in the previous 2009-2012 Code of Points (CoP) of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for MAG.
Ri competed in the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and qualified first for the individual vault final. He finished in seventh place in that event final after a fall on his first vault and going out of bounds on his second vault, with an average score of 15.650.
Together with the entire North Korean delegation team, Ri was banned from competing in artistic gymnastics at the 2012 London Olympics due to persistent issues with regards to age falsification accusations of their female gymnasts. The two-year ban ended on October 5, 2012, which came just a bit too late to try make that cycle's August Olympic Games.
At the 2014 Asian Games, Ri qualified in first place ahead of the 2012 Olympic champion on vault, Yang Hak Seon of South Korea, but finished just missing the bronze medal by the narrowest of margins (0.001) with an average combined score of 14.799 on the individual vault event behind Shek Wai Hung of Hong Kong (15.216), Yang Hak Seon (15.200) and Hung Xi of China (14.800).
At the 2014 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships held in Nanning, China, Ri defeated the reigning World and Olympic Champion Yang Hak Seon after Yang crashed in both his vaults during the event final, and won the gold medal with an average combined score of 15.413 ahead of Ihor Radivilov of Ukraine (15.333), 2012 Olympic bronze medalist on vault, and Jacob Dalton from the United States (15.199). Ri won thanks to the quad's highest difficulty scores of 6.4 assigned to both his vaults, and despite incurring a 0.3 penalty for stepping out-of-bounds in his second vault.
At the 2018 Asian Games, Ri qualified in sixth place and finished in fifth place with an average combined score of 13.400 on the individual vault event behind the 2014 defending Asian Games champion on vault, Shek Wai Hung of Hong Kong (14.612), who also qualified for the 2018 individual vault event final in first place.
Ri is the only gymnast to currently own more than one (two) of only five most difficult vaults to have officially been awarded the highest difficulty score (D-score) of 6.0 by the governing body of all disciplines in competitive gymnastics, International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), in their most recent 2022–2024 Code of Points for MAG.
Apparatus
Name
Description
Difficulty
Notes
Vault
Ri Se Gwang
backward full-twisting double (tucked) Tsukahara
6.0 (6.4 originally)
reassessed for top difficulty to match the Yang Hak Seon on vault
Ri Se Gwang 2
front handspring double piked salto with ½ twist
more commonly known as the vault's “Drăgulescu piked” in practice
