Trampolining Competitions Southampton

Individual Trampoline

The first individual trampolining competitions were held in colleges and schools in the USA and then in Europe, with the first World Championships being held in London in 1964. Kurt Baechler of Switzerland and Ted Blake of England were the European pioneers and the first ever televised National Championships were in England in 1958. At first there was no generally accepted format for trampoline competitions but this became standardised as the sport became more organised and international with the setting up of the International Trampoline Federation.

Soon after the first World Championships, the inaugural meeting of prominent trampolinists was held in Frankfurt to explore the formation of an International Trampoline Federation. In 1965 in Twickenham, the Federation was formally recognised as the International Governing Body for the sport. In 1969 the first European Championship was held in Paris and Paul Luxon of London was the winner at the age of 18. The ladies winner was Ute Czech from Germany. From that time onwards, European and World Championships have taken place in alternate years - the European in the odd and the World in the even.

At first the Americans dominated the World Championships, but due to many law suits over trampolining, trampolining was no longer allowed in most educational institutions and the high level of participation and performance by Americans decreased. The Europeans began to dominate the sport and for a number of years, athletes from the former Soviet Union have almost completely dominated the sport. Germany, France have been the other strong nations in trampolining and the first four ranking places in World Trampolining used to go to USSR, France, Britain and Germany.

In recent years, Canada has also produced Olympic medalists and World champions due in large part to contributions made to the sport by Dave Ross. Ross pioneered the sport in Canada almost 30 years ago and consistently produces Olympic and World Cup athletes.

Format of Competitions

The International Trampolining Federation became part of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique in 1999. FIG is now the international governing body for the sport. International competitions are run under the rules of FIG. Individual National gymnastics organisations can make local variations to the rules in matters such as the compulsory and optional routines, and number of rounds for national and local competitions.

As part of the agreement to merge FIT with FIG, individual trampolining was accepted into the Summer Olympic Games for 2000 as an additional gymnastic sport.

The currently accepted basic format for individual trampoline competitions usually consists of two or three routines, one of which may involve a compulsory set of skills. The skills consist of various combinations of somersaults and twists performed in various body positions such as the tuck, pike or straight position.

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