Dong delights with bouncy trampoline gold
Source: AFP |
August 4, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TWO-TIME world champion Dong Dong, who began his final routine yesterday with five twisting triple flips, won the men's Olympic trampoline gold with a score of 62.990 points.
Soaring 10 meters into the air and making triple somersaults with twisting front and back flips, the springy high-fliers of the Olympics defy gravity with each bounce while judges grade them on flight time as well as acrobatic moves.
Dong exited after competing to the song "Jump" by Van Halen and left the medal podium to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones.
Mandy Lomax brought her eight-year-old son Joseph to watch, finally getting tickets only three days before the event after trying for months.
Joseph began jumping on the family trampoline in the garden three years ago and now bounces twice a week at a trampoline academy in Northampton.
"You can do lots of really cool tricks," he said. "It's a lot of fun."
Would he want to be in the Olympics one day? He smiles and nods, and the dream continues, inspired by a sport that only debuted in the Olympics in 2000. It's an intense atmosphere when trampolinists perform, so silent you can hear the "boing, boing, boing" of the apparatus springs and the whistle sound as they quickly exhale at the height of their somersault so they can inhale on the downward plunge to be ready for the next effort.
Gravity is over-rated in a sport that can seem silly and dangerous all in the same moment, a combination of elegance and grace with power and precision. American George Nissen invented the sport in the 1930s, trademarking his apparatus from the Spanish word for springboard. Ramona and Neil Vinsant, parents of US Olympic trampolinist Savannah Vinsant, were among the first in the arena. Their daughter discovered the sport at age eight, sneaking out of tumbling class to hang out with a bouncier crowd.
"It's artistic on steroids," Ramona Vinsant said. "You enjoy watching everybody. You know what it took each one of them to get here."
When a coach asked a 10-year-old Savannah if she wanted to be an Olympian, the idea stuck. Now she wants to see more people get hooked on trampoline.
"Once they see how beautiful the sport is, they will be coming back," she said.
In badminton, top-ranked Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei beat No. 2 Xu Chen and Ma Jin 21-11, 21-17 in the all-Chinese gold medal final to clinch the mixed doubles title. Zhao will have a chance at a second gold in the women's doubles today.
Earlier, Joachim Fischer and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark won the bronze medal, turning great starts in both games, 7-1 then 11-4, into a 21-12, 21-12 victory over Tontowi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir of Indonesia in Wembley Arena.
Soaring 10 meters into the air and making triple somersaults with twisting front and back flips, the springy high-fliers of the Olympics defy gravity with each bounce while judges grade them on flight time as well as acrobatic moves.
Dong exited after competing to the song "Jump" by Van Halen and left the medal podium to "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones.
Mandy Lomax brought her eight-year-old son Joseph to watch, finally getting tickets only three days before the event after trying for months.
Joseph began jumping on the family trampoline in the garden three years ago and now bounces twice a week at a trampoline academy in Northampton.
"You can do lots of really cool tricks," he said. "It's a lot of fun."
Would he want to be in the Olympics one day? He smiles and nods, and the dream continues, inspired by a sport that only debuted in the Olympics in 2000. It's an intense atmosphere when trampolinists perform, so silent you can hear the "boing, boing, boing" of the apparatus springs and the whistle sound as they quickly exhale at the height of their somersault so they can inhale on the downward plunge to be ready for the next effort.
Gravity is over-rated in a sport that can seem silly and dangerous all in the same moment, a combination of elegance and grace with power and precision. American George Nissen invented the sport in the 1930s, trademarking his apparatus from the Spanish word for springboard. Ramona and Neil Vinsant, parents of US Olympic trampolinist Savannah Vinsant, were among the first in the arena. Their daughter discovered the sport at age eight, sneaking out of tumbling class to hang out with a bouncier crowd.
"It's artistic on steroids," Ramona Vinsant said. "You enjoy watching everybody. You know what it took each one of them to get here."
When a coach asked a 10-year-old Savannah if she wanted to be an Olympian, the idea stuck. Now she wants to see more people get hooked on trampoline.
"Once they see how beautiful the sport is, they will be coming back," she said.
In badminton, top-ranked Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei beat No. 2 Xu Chen and Ma Jin 21-11, 21-17 in the all-Chinese gold medal final to clinch the mixed doubles title. Zhao will have a chance at a second gold in the women's doubles today.
Earlier, Joachim Fischer and Christinna Pedersen of Denmark won the bronze medal, turning great starts in both games, 7-1 then 11-4, into a 21-12, 21-12 victory over Tontowi Ahmad and Lilyana Natsir of Indonesia in Wembley Arena.
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