Bouncers out to impress in Sydney's Park

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Sydney: Bouncers will be out in Sydney's Olympic Park on Friday but not to throw rowdy Australians out of pubs. These are competitors in the newest Olympic sport - trampolining.

The men and women who will be leaping up to 20-metres (65 feet) in the air prefer to be called bouncers to trampolinists. They hope their acrobatics will raise the profile of the sport, one of the least known in the Games.

Trampolining was invented in the 1930s by Americans 'Leapin' Larry Griswold, a vaudeville acrobat, and George 'Hands' Nissen, a carnival performer who preferred to walk around on his hands.

It was not recognised as an international sport until 1964. It staged its first world championships only in 1967. The sport was slow to take off because it was associated with children crashing to the ground in backyards across North America, breaking bones and spraining joints.

But a competition manual put together in 1942 along with improved equipment has slowly increased its popularity, particularly in eastern European.

It has a men's and women's World Cup circuit, won this year by Frenchman David Martin and three-time world champion Irina Karavaeva of Russia.

The gold medal favourite in the men's event is Russian Alexandre Moskalenko, a three-time world champion who shed 24 kg (53 lbs) when he came out of retirement to claim a fourth world title in 1999 after learning the sport would become part of the Olympics.

"I gave up competing after having won my third world title in 1994 because I didn't see any more sense in continuing," said the 30-year-old Moskalenko, who holds the world record score of 111.000 points.

"In 1998 when I knew trampoline had been recognised as an Olympic sport, I saw a good reason for me to comeback and fight a new challenge."

It's appropriate that trampolining is making its Olympic debut in Australia.When Griswold and Nissen first attempted to market their invention the publicity photographs showed the pair bouncing on a trampoline with a kangaroo.



(c) Reuters Limited.