Lofty goals for junior jumper
Kieran Lupish is hoping the third time is a charm.
The 16-year-old, Vineland resident qualified for the World Trampoline Championships in Japan in December following a standout showing at the Canadian championships in Trampoline/Gymnastics at Durham College recently.
Lupish claimed a silver on trampoline, a silver on Team Ontario’s double mini team and a bronze on individual DMT.
It will be Lupish’s third time representing Canada following a fourth-place overall finish in Bulgaria last year and a 15th-place finish in Russia the year before.
“I would love to place first,” said Lupish, who is entering Grade 11 at Grimsby and District Secondary School. “I would love to be a world champion, that would be pretty sick.
“Honestly, my goal is just to make the finals. Once you make the finals, it’s a fresh start and just the top 10.”
Lupish said the competition at the Canadian championships was stiff.
“They’re all pretty good,” he said. “A lot of it depends on the day but they’re not too different.”
Lupish isn’t phased despite the fact the sport is based on judgement.
“The trampoline is judged for difficulty and how high you bounce and where you are related to the middle of the trampoline and how good you look in the air,” he explained. “They give you the outline of what it’s supposed to look like and what each thing is supposed to be to be a perfect score.
“I would be mad if one person scored me really high and one scored me really low. There are four judges and two of the scores count.”
Lupish said the difference between gold and silver can often be measured in seconds.
“Honestly, it depends on getting better form and doing higher skills on your routines and bouncing higher,” he said. “One of the things people don’t really realize until they go to a competition is the one guy is bouncing way higher. One kid beat me and he bounced three seconds higher than me which was automatically three points and he won by three points so only his time of flight beat me.”
Lupish now has some time to recover and train for Japan.
“There are a couple of things I want to focus on and reach towards those goals. Pick a routine and then just practice that like crazy,” he said.
Lupish, who works out at Burlington Trampoline and Tumbling with coach Teresa Mikola, said the sport is much more demanding than it looks.
“I bounce for maybe 45 seconds and afterwards I’m gassed. I can’t even breath anymore. I’m so out of breath. It’s exhausting and it’s pretty hard on your body. My back is always sore from it.”
Lupsh was introduced into the sport by a friend after being injured in gymnastics.
“I had a pretty bad injury in my shoulder in gymnastics and I couldn’t really do anything anymore because my flexibility was going and my shoulder was really killing me,” he said. “I had nothing to do at the time so I tried it.”
His prowess has not gone unnoticed by his peers.
“Everywhere I go, they ask me to jump. They all think it’s pretty sick.”
His long-term goals are to qualify for the world championships (17 and over) in mini trampoline and the Olympics for the trampoline.
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