Every teenager dreams of flying or being able to do cooler tricks than their friends. Madeleine Johnson and Patrick Cooper can do both and they love it.

On Friday in Singapore they have their biggest test yet against the other best 11 trampolinists in the world.   

At the tender age of 16 they have already travelled extensively with their sport and one day it may even take them to careers in the circus. 

But all this doesn’t come easy.  

“They work hard, very hard. They are good kids,” Australian trampoline coach Nikolay Zhuravlev said while training in Singapore.  

When you talk to Maddie and Patty you appreciate how passionate they are about trampolining, how focussed they are on perfection and that they have that ‘X’ factor that all top competitive sportspeople possess. 

You also recognise the great friendship they share. Johnson lives in Melbourne and Cooper in Rockhampton but they have developed a brother-sister like bond in recent years representing Australia and chasing that Olympic dream.  

There is a healthy rivalry in their training group. Lots of jokes about what boys can do better or girls can do better. And their Russian-born mentor plays on this, to get the most out of his athletes. 

That energy combined with their ‘positive during competition but constructively critical at training’ coach provides an environment that makes chasing perfection seem less hard.  

Trampolining is as intense, and complicated as the other gymnastics disciplines but ‘this is way more fun,’ they laugh. 

Cooper started the sport after his mum recognised his love and freakish ability on their backyard trampoline. Johnson was an artistic gymnast before switching at 10 when she developed arthritis in her hands. Neither of them have looked back. 

Here in Singapore the women’s medals are decided on Friday afternoon and the men in the evening. Johnson is first up on Friday with her set routine, followed by her voluntary and then hopefully these combined scores place her top eight. In the final the scores are wiped for one final voluntary performance to decide the medals. Johnson’s voluntary routine has a degree of difficulty of 12.7 and Cooper’s is 13.7. 

There are five performance judges with the three middle scores taken and added to the degree of difficulty to reach the final score for a routine.

 A top trampoline routine is a little different to what you may expect. The more time it takes you to complete your 10 elements the better it is.  

“if you’re really good a routine will takes 20 seconds and we take 18 or 19,” Cooper said. 

Height is what you want so you have more time to do your skills. 

“Trampolinists are chasing the perfect 0 for each of the ten elements in a routine not perfect 10’s,” Johnson explains. 

“Each routine has really difficult elements at the start then some simpler ones and then you always finish with a bang,” Cooper joins in. 

So what is his bang element in simple terms? 

“I do a double somersault, with a half twist in the first somersault and a one-and-a-half twist in the second and it’s in the piked position. 

“It’s all about balancing how hard your routine is with how nice it is. If it’s really hard but really ugly then you won’t get the scores you need. And the sequence of your elements is also important” Johnson pointed out. 

Zhuravlev has a lot of confidence in his charges. 

“I can say both of them are very very competitive they have very very good chance. I always said if everybody do their best they can make final. And in the final it can be like short track. Like Bradbury.” 

Handling the pressure is very important and these flying friends know how to do it.

Andrew Reid
AOC