In December of last year my daughter Jennifer asked me to get her into tumbling. She cartwheels everywhere in the house and is more times upside-down than on her feet. So I finally enrolled her in a tumbling class. After two beginner sessions she was hooked and the coach immediately asked her to be in the “pre-team” class. At that point she told the coach “my Dad is an Olympian”. This of course brought the coach out to meet me. His first question was “Can you help us coach?”. I said no for about a month, but then caved-in. Jennifer now enjoys her Dad helping coach and I enjoy occasionally bouncing on the trampoline and unfortunately sometimes going home sore. The team she now competes for is Air Sports, Scottsdale AZ. At the recent State Championships in her age group and level, she took first place on Double Mini-Tramp and second on trampoline! I guess this is her sport.
So what is T&T anyway?
T&T stands for Trampoline and Tumbling. It is a separate division of gymnastics under USA Gymnastics governance (www.usa-gymnastics.com). It is comprised of four events, trampoline, synchronized trampoline, tumbling and double mini-trampoline. Of these trampoline is actually an Olympic sport by itself; double mini and tumbling are not Olympic sports but they are part of T&T and it does have World Championship competitions.
In my opinion, T&T is “extreme gymnastics”, it takes the “funnest” and most exciting part of gymnastics; flipping and twisting; and gives you the chance to do it on four different events. Trampoline is probably the hardest event with every gymnast having to do 10 consecutive skills with as many twists and flips as possible. The more flips and twists you do the higher your degree of difficulty (DD). An elite routine will be in the 15 or 16 point DD level. This DD is added to the judges execution score to produce your final score. Elite trampolinists will bounce as high as 30 feet, some even completing quad flips with twist! Here is a Canadian Olympian, Jason Burnett who got the silver medal in Beijing (2008) doing a routine with the “highest DD ever”, 20.6 (although not in competition).