Bryony Page reflects on lessons learned from first Trampoline World Championships 13 years ago
The history-making trampolinist is eyeing success at her home World Championships in Birmingham not only to increase her medal tally but also qualify a berth for GB at Paris 2024, where a third medal in as many Games is her goal.
"My first world championship was an amazing experience," Bryony Page tells Olympics.com in an exclusive interview ahead of the 2023 Trampoline World Championships taking place in the UK from 9-12 November.
"That was the first time I really thought, oh, I have Olympic potential here," says the Brit of the 2010 edition in Metz, France.
Thirteen years on and Page heads into her ninth World Championships happy in the knowledge her premonition has come to fruition – not just as an Olympian, but a two-time Olympian. Not only that but Page is the first Brit ever to win an Olympic trampoline medal, with silver at Rio 2016, followed by bronze at Tokyo 2020.
The 32-year-old now has a chance to secure a berth for Team GB in the women's individual event at Paris 2024, at a World Championships that doubles as an Olympic qualifier, and with it, a chance of being selected for a third Games.
Up to half of the 16 women and 16 men, who will ultimately compete in France, will come from the championships in Birmingham. The rest secure spots via the 2023-24 World Cup series, which began in February 2023 and conclude in April 2024.
The eight highest-ranked male and eight highest-ranked female athletes based on the results of the finals will each qualify one quota place for their National Olympic Committee.
So, as the three-time world champion heads into her home event, Page reminisces about her first World Championships and what it taught her in the early days of her record-breaking career.
- As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.
- Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.
Bryony Page jumps in at the deep end
"I wasn't good enough to compete in any junior Worlds competitions," says Page in a matter-of-fact manner of the reason the senior Worlds in 2010 was her first foray onto the global scene.
"Competing at the Europeans earlier that year was my first major event and I think I finished 15th or 16th, with a solid routine with a dodgy last skill," smiles Page. "I was really happy with where I placed."
During the World Cup series leading into the championships, Page says she "made silly mistakes here and there, and so I didn't really get to understand if I'd have done my normal routine without those little mistakes or big mistakes where I would have placed. So, the World Championships was kind of a tester to see where I would place on the world stage".
Sixty-two women's trampoline gymnasts took part in the qualification rounds at Les Arènes, all aiming for a prized top eight spot to secure a place in the final.
Page came an impressive ninth, and due to the two-per-country rule, which stipulates only two athletes from each nation can progress to the final, made it through to the medal shoot-out as People's Republic of China had four of the top eight spots.
"It was my first Worlds, and I made the final," remembers Page. "I remember marching out and I was amongst Olympic and world champions. It was just really exciting competing amongst my idols, but that was the first lesson I learned, it gave me that belief that I could potentially become an Olympian, too."
Those world and Olympic champions included Huang Shanshan, the defending world champion, who qualified top. Li Dan, who would go on to win gold in Metz, and who secured China's second spot. He Wenna, the then reigning Olympic champion from Beijing 2008, and Zhong Xingping, who would go on to become the individual World silver medallist in 2013, missed out on the finals after coming third and fifth, respectively.
Nevertheless, Page would still be up against Huang and Li plus Russia's Irina Karavaeva, the Sydney 2000 Olympic champion and five-time individual world champion; Tatsiana Piatrenia of Belarus, who would win the 2017 title; Germany's Anna Dogonadze, the 2004 Olympic champion; and Canada's Rosie MacLennan, a two-time Olympic and world champion, and the trampolinist who would beat Page to the gold medal at Rio 2016.
Luba Golovina of Georgia, and Page, were the only two not to have any pedigree on the world scene.
Jumping at the opportunity
"I was in one of the first groups (in qualifying)," says Page of the long wait to see if she'd qualified for the final, "and I remember watching the competition and whenever somebody that I'd been watching, and learning from, and idolising, competed, I was like, 'Oh, they're so good, they're definitely going to beat me', and then their score would pop up and I was like, 'What?'.
"And it kept doing that.
"So, it came to the last group, and I was like, 'I don't think I'm going to make the final because there are three people that are capable of pushing me out', and I had to wait the entire competition (to find out). It was just really exciting to see where I actually placed."
Two days later came the final and it couldn't have gone any better for Page.
"I've been trampolining for 23 years, and I can only remember three times where I did the best routine at that time I could have done. One of them being the Rio Olympics in the final, and one of them was at that World Championships in the final.
"At that moment, that was the best routine I could have done and I kind of knew that as soon as I'd finished," says Page now. "It doesn't happen very often that everything comes together, and you don't make any little mistakes. It's just the best of what you've been training in sections comes together as a whole routine."
In the hotbed of talent, Page had come fourth.
Savvy Bryony Page eyes more
With experience, Page now understands that achieving perfection is an impossible task, and not to panic during competitions if she makes a slight error, which makes her even more of a threat for the top of world and Olympic podiums.
"I've got to a point in my journey that (even not performing at my best) is still good enough to medal now, whereas before it had to be my absolute best if I was going to give me a chance of medalling.
"Now, I have a bit more leeway.
"I'm still striving to do my best routine," says Page, who won individual world gold in 2021, "but sometimes if it falls short or I make a mistake, which is the most likely outcome, you're not always going to be able to perform the absolute best routine you can in every single moment. So yeah, I think at that time, fourth was the best I could have done.
"Even though it was just outside the medals – and silver, where you just miss out on becoming an Olympic champion – for me, they were both my gold medals because I can remember the feeling of finishing the routines and how amazing that felt when it all came together. So that's what you're striving for, that feeling of, 'this is the best I can show, and this is the best I can do'."
As Page relaxes into the latter stages of her career, having achieved more than she ever dreamed, reflections on her first World Championships reveal how far she's come.
"I feel like my body is in a place and my mind is in place and my training is in a place where I can really push forward and achieve new goals, which is really exciting, and that's what drives me."
At the 2023 World Championships, it's Great Britain's Bryony Page who will be watched and idolised by the next generation.
But they'll have to do their best – Page is not done yet.