KU-RING-GAI TRAMPOLINE CLUB
SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS TRAMPOLINE CLUB
TRAMPOLINING HISTORY
It is reported that in Anchorage airport Alaska, there are postcards depicting the Eskimos being tossed up in a Walrus skin.
The trampoline itself, according to circus lore, was first developed by an artist called Du Trampolin who saw the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a form of propulsion and landing device and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for separate performance.
The word “trampoline” appears on an 1843 poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal, which references performance on trampoline. Pablo’s circus achieved fame in the twentieth century, when John Lennon, in composing the Beatles' "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" borrowed liberally from the 1843 poster: “Mr. Henderson will introduce his extraordinary trampoline leaps”. The Hendersons performed throughout Europe and Russia during the 1840s and 1850s.
Circus lore also has Italian circus acrobat and tumbler Alfonso Barani inventing the front somersault with ½ twist around 1881. The Rudolph, a front somersault with 1½ twists; also known as a "Rudy", is attributed to Dave Roudolph who executed the 1 ½ twisting front Somersault on a trampoline in the late 1920's in Vaudeville.
In 1934 in Iowa USA, George Nissen and Larry Griswold built a prototype trampoline from angle iron with a canvas bed and rubber springs, and they then produced the first modern trampoline in 1936. George Nissen says that after a display of diving, tumbling and trampolining in Mexico, he named his bouncing rig "trampoline" by adding an "e" to the Spanish word for Diving board (trampolin).
During World War II, the United States Navy Flight School developed the use of the trampoline in its training of pilots and navigators, giving them concentrated practice in spatial orientation that had not been possible before.
After the war, the development of the space flight programme again brought the trampoline into use to help train both American and Soviet astronauts, giving them experience of variable body positions in flight.
Trampolining as a sport began in the United States in the late 1940s firstly as rebound tumbling but then became known as Trampolining. As well as George and Larry, many pioneers were involved in the development of the sport including Frank LaDue, Jeff Hennessy, Newt Loken and Bob Bollinger (who invented the axial-rotation degree of difficulty system) in the USA, Ted Blake, Rob Walker and Ian Grant in the UK, Kurt Baechler in Switzerland, and Fred Austine and David Wareham in Australia, to mention just a few of the early enthusiasts for our sport.
The first national championships of the USA were held in 1948, the first UK National Trampoline Championships in 1957, and the first Australian Senior Champions are recorded in 1964 for trampoline and in 1976 for Synchro and DMT.
The first World Championships were held in London in 1964, and in 1965 the International Trampolining Federation (FIT) was formally recognised as the international governing body for the sport.
The FIT became part of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique in 1999, and FIG is now the international governing body for the sport. 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.
At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Ji Wallace of Australia won the Silver medal for trampolining.
Australian Olympics competitors:
Sydney 2000: Ji Wallace, Robyn Forbes
Athens 2004: Lesley Daley
Beijing 2008: Ben Wilden
London 2012: Blake Gaudry
Rio 2016: Blake Gaudry
Tokyo 2020: Dominic Clarke, Jessica Pickering
LINKS www.fig-gymnastics.com www.gymnastics.org.au www.gymnsw.org.au
(Sources in this website are Wikipedia, Rob Walker, and various much appreciated comments from people, data and websites, plus the knowledge gained over many years in the sport by the Club Coaches)
