Great Britain’s Bryony Page crowned Olympic champion in women’s trampoline at third Games

PARIS – Bryony Page knows a thing or two about making history for Great Britain.

In 2016, Page and teammate Kat Driscoll were Great Britain’s first ever Olympic finalists in trampoline. She’d go on to win silver behind trampoline legend Rosie MacLennan – her country’s first Olympic medal in the sport. Five years later, at the delayed Tokyo Games, Page added a bronze.

Over the past three years, Page has been on a tear, winning the 2021 and 2023 world titles and snagging a silver in 2022. Still, she didn’t arrive in Paris as the favorite – that was China’s Zhu Xueying, the defending Olympic champion. Page beat Zhu at 2023 Worlds, but could she repeat the feat? Could she finally stand atop the Olympic podium that she had become so well acquainted?

She could, and she did.

Bercy Arena set the stage for a coronation that feels as though it’s been in the cards since Page’s first world championships in 2010.

Page qualified fifth with a 55.620, behind first place qualifier Zhu, AIN Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya, Zhu’s teammate Hu Yicheng, and AIN Anzhela Bladtceva. She wasn’t necessarily surprised but needed to pivot quickly, with approximately 30 minutes between qualifying and the final.

“I had a weird feeling that I might finish fifth this competition,” Page said of her qualifying. “I think I just switched my mind, thinking, ‘Why are you going for fifth when you want more?'”

While Page was able to pivot, Zhu went the opposite way. Competing second in the final, her routine was clearly off from the beginning. She was hugging one end of the trampoline for much of the time and had to sacrifice form to avoid wiping out completely. She was already out of contention for gold when her score flashed 55.510 and would spend the remainder of the final with her head in her hands and tears in her eyes, knowing that wasn’t to her standard.

The tears continued for Bladtceva, who qualified fourth and had the chance at a medal. Instead, she scored seven-tenths lower than qualifying and left the podium with her head bowed in disappointment.

With the door thrown wide open, Canadian Sophiane Methot capitalized. She qualified eighth, in last place, but upped her difficulty by six-tenths, was steady in the middle of the apparatus, and showed more amplitude, scoring a 55.650.

Page followed with a slightly lower difficulty score than qualifying – a 15.000 instead of a 15.200 – but she made up the two-tenths and then some, adding seven-tenths in execution alone and improving her time of flight and horizontal displacement to tally a 56.480 – more than four-tenths higher than Bardzilouskaya, who went first and scored a 56.060.

Hu was last up and China’s last chance to keep their streak alive in the event, but her routine was cut short by a mistake that led to a fall, securing the podium.

“It sounds amazing. I had quite a difficult build-up, anticipating this competition for a long time,” Page said. “I have struggled with an ankle injury, I twitched my neck yesterday (during podium training). So going on I was really nervous and wanting to stay focused and wanting to make it into finals. I managed to get through prelims so I was really happy with that. And then, in the finals, I was able to upgrade from what I did in the last Olympics.”

The 33-year-old said she has no plans to retire – in fact, a fourth Games may be in the cards.

“My plan is to continue,” Page said. “I love trampolining, and I love trying new skills and I still got a few more achievements that I want to achieve personally. Like new skills as well as some other competitions that I’m really keen to do, like synchronised trampoline at the 2025 World Games with [teammate] Isabelle Songhurst. Those are next year, so I have a good amount of time to get what I want. Then, after that, maybe Cirque du Soleil if they still want to have me as an older athlete (laughs). We’ll see. Then I might try and make a comeback for LA [2028] after Cirque.” 

Bardzilouskaya, a 19-year-old from Belarus who was 5 when Page competed at her first Worlds, won the first medal for an AIN in Paris.

Methot returned Canada to the podium, following in trampoline legend Rosie MacLennan’s footsteps. MacLennan won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2016.

American Jessica Stevens wasn’t able to replicate her bronze medal from Worlds last fall and finished 13th.

“I’m still so happy,” Stevens said. “It was my first Olympics, so I didn’t know what to expect going into it. Of course I wanted to do a little better, but for being my first Olympics, I couldn’t be more proud of what I did.”