Méthot flips and flies to trampoline bronze at Paris 2024
In her Olympic debut, Sophiane Méthot has won bronze in women’s trampoline at Paris 2024.
Méthot took the last spot in the final after placing eighth in the qualification round earlier in the day.
Trampoline scores count four criteria: the difficulty of elements performed, the execution of those elements, the time that the gymnast spends in the air, and the horizontal displacement across the trampoline bed.
In her final routine, Méthot stayed beautifully centered on the trampoline bed while cleanly executing all of her skills. She had the best horizontal displacement score of all the finalists and tied for the highest difficulty score. Méthot totalled 55.650, which put her in second place with two athletes to go.
The next athlete up was Great Britain’s Bryony Page, a two-time Olympic medallist and reigning world champion who finally won her first Olympic gold medal after scoring 56.480. That pushed Méthot to third behind Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya, a Belarussian competing as a neutral independent athlete. She had totalled 56.060, boosted by a huge time of flight mark.
Méthot had to sit and nervously watch the final competitor, Hu Yicheng of China, who had been third in the qualification round. But early in her routine, Hu travelled to the edge of the trampoline bed and couldn’t stay on it, a mistake that assured Méthot of her spot on the podium.
This is Canada’s sixth Olympic medal in women’s trampoline. Since the sport debuted at Sydney 2000, a Canadian has reached the podium in every women’s trampoline final except Tokyo 2020. Karen Cockburn claimed two silver and a bronze from 2000 to 2008 before Rosie MacLennan won back-to-back gold medals at London 2012 and Rio 2016 .
