Trampoline Gymnastics:Elements that make a difference

Faster, higher, stronger, but especially higher: The Olympic motto is particularly applicable in Trampoline Gymnastics, where athletes soar up to eight meters in the air while executing jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics. The sky is literally the limit in Trampoline, but a winning strategy for the discipline's elite is about more than just bouncing high - gymnasts must also take the risk factor into account and strive to execute elements with good form. In a discipline that has not stopped evolving since making its Olympic debut in 2000, here are three factors that could make a big difference at this week's World Championships in Odense:

Time of flight

Time of flight was added in 2010 as one of the three scoring components in Trampoline, along with Difficulty and Execution. A laser placed at the height of the trampoline bed calculates the time the gymnast spends in the air during an exercise, which is transformed into a point total, rounded to the thousandth of a second. The introduction of this scoring criteria transformed the discipline, obliging gymnasts to seek new strategies in constructing their exercises.

"Gymnasts lose more than they gain by adding difficult elements that they haven't mastered," explained Christophe Lambert, Vice President of the FIG Trampoline Technical Committee. "If the technique isn't good, the gymnast is going to travel from side to side on the trampoline, lowering the amount of time they're in the air. It's also a safeguard for them in that it dissuades them from risking more difficulty than they can handle."

Time of flight has been known to make a big difference on the World level: When 2012 Olympic champion Dong Dong and compatriot Tu Xiao received the same Difficulty and Execution scores in finals at the 2013 Worlds, Dong's superior Time of flight -- a mere 0.215 seconds -- gave him the gold.

Triple salto variations: Signature of the greats

With the arrival of the discipline under the Olympic rings in Sydney in 2000, equipment manufacturers have developed better performing Trampolines, which has led athletes to perform new, harder elements in turn. The most apparent among the men has been the triple front salto, performed in the pike position, with 1.5 twists at the end. To do it, a gymnast launches themselves skyward in a series of front flips and spins like a top on the descent. When a gymnast begins their exercise with this element, judges know they are dealing with a serious contender.

The best men are capable of combining triple somersaults in the piked or tucked positions, often with a half twist at the beginning or the end. The Chinese team as a whole has made triple variations their calling card, and it is because of their ability to do them well that they have become so dominant. Of the 10 elements that make up the difficulty score of an exercise, doing five or six triples in a routine puts the gymnast in orbit of the medal podium.

On the women's side, the best competitors, including 2012 Olympic champion Rosannagh MacLennan (CAN), are capable of producing routines with three triple saltos.

The "Miller," a Trampoline classic

American Wayne Miller, who won World Trampoline titles in 1966 and 1970, invented an element that was so far ahead of its time the best are still performing it half a century later. The "Miller" is a double backwards salto with three twists, while the "Miller plus" is a souped up version with four twists instead of three. "It's an absolute classic in Men's Trampoline," noted Lambert. All the best gymnasts cap their routines with the laid-out version of this graceful skill.

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