About 50 freestyle trampolinists from across New Zealand and Australia are competing at Frankton’s SITE Trampoline in the annual GTGames ANZ, focused on ‘Gtramp’, or garden trampolining.
Freestyle Trampolining Association and Gtramp co-founder Greg Roe — a former Team Canada Olympian — says the sport’s a more relaxed version of Olympic-style trampolining, combining elements of skateboarding, parkour and freestyle snowboarding, and was born on Instagram.
"Doing a flip, posting it on social media can go really viral.
"Think about Gtramp the same as snowboarding was in the ’80s — we’re divergent from the traditional stream ... we’re the snowboarders that have a different culture, still sort of using similar equipment, but in a different way."
Gtramp’s now become hugely popular across the world, though the GTGames selection criteria stays true to its origins.
All athletes competing between tomorrow and Sunday will be aged between 13 and 25 — and all have been selected based on videos they’ve posted to Insta, using the hashtag ‘gtramp’ — athletes were chosen based on their creativity, difficulty, and safe landings.
The games are being run by Kiwi A.J. Ross and Australian Alex Osborn, both of whom competed in last year’s Freestyle Trampoline Worlds in Spain.
Roe says there are only about 100 athletes involved in Gtramp in Australia and New Zealand, so the GTGames is a good way to bring as many of them together as possible.
"It is a community vibe; it’s just having fun with your buddies and pushing yourself, but it’s OK if you mess up.
"It is run by athletes, for the athletes."
This weekend’s comp also includes a world champs qualifier, on Saturday morning, open to anyone over the age of 13 — the top three men and the winner of the junior category will be invited to compete in Barcelona in September.
The GTGames runs from tomorrow till Sunday.
